Non-Partisan
tax gouge

ANCOUVER’S Non-Partisan
V city council is planning to
boost taxes on homes when the
new budget comes down in
March. This is already indi-
cated by statements from the
city hall ahd by the sharp in-
crease in assessments on homes,

Assessment notices mailed
to taxpayers in the last few
days show an average increase
of 15 percent on land, with
some running as high as 40
percent. The 1957 assessment
roll is $100 million more than
last year. The council will
set the mill rate in March bas-
ed on these swollen assessment
rolls.

City council policy on assess-
ments this year has been to go
easy on the downtown business
district while imposing higher
assessments on outlying prop-
erties, mainly homes. ’ This
policy leaked out in a press
story in November which said:
“Assessments are not expected
to be increased in district lot
541, which is the heart of the
downtown business section.”

The result is that most home-
owners are having their lots
assessed at much more than
the average 15 percent. This
policy discriminates. against
homeowners and places a
greater burden on them to
finance civic services. Higher
taxes on homes to subsidise
lower taxes on downtown
business properties — this ap-
- pears to be the aim of the
council in 1957. And it’s one
that Vancouver citizens will
protest strongly.

It should be noted that an
increase in assessments does
not necessarily mean that
higher taxes are inevitable.
Last year assessments were
raised and the council planned
to boost taxes, but strong pub-
lic protest compelled aldermen
to bring down the mill rate
and generally hold the line
on taxes, although small in-
creases were experienced by
many homeowners.

The council can again be
forced by public protest to
reduce the mill rate when the
budget comes up-in March so
that there will be no increase
in taxes on homes.

&

There are signs that, through
higher taxes, the council hopes
to obtain for itself most of the
$28 rebate promised to home-

owners by the provincial gov-
ernment.

In what appeared to be a

By MAURICE RUSH

report inspired by the city hall,
the Vancouver Province com-
mented on December 28 that
“the $28 rebate ... will help
offset any tax increase.” The
council apparently intends io
ignore the fact that the rebate
is intended to relieve the pre-
sent heavy tax load on home-

owners and to appropriate the
money for its own needs.

This would enable the coun-
cil to continue evading the
problem of sources of revenue
and thrust the burden back
upon homeowners.

It’s true that Vancouver’s
financial needs are growing
and that each year the city is
falling behind in needed civic
services, but it’s equally true
that taxes on homes have
reached their limit. The coun-
cil must find other ways of
raising taxes to retain a high
level of civic services without
heaping additional burdens on
overtaxed homes.

There’s a number of things
the city ean do to eliminate
the need for a further tax in-
crease on homes this year,

The council can use its esti-
mated surplus of $500,000 to
help balance the 1957 budget
instead of pigeon-holing it for
some special fund.

Vancouver will received an
estimated $529,000 in federal
grants for government proper-
ties in the city under the new
arangement announced in the
Speech from the Throne. The
council can follow this up with
strong representations to Vic-
toria to compel the provincial
government to do likewise by
paying taxes on its $9,750,000
holdings in Vancouver. At
present Victoria only pays the
city $15,000 annually for
Liquor Control Board proper-
ties, while the rest is tax free.

The council can revise its
assessment policies to end
favoritism toward downtown
big business concerns and
bring these properties into line
with overall assessments in the
city.

The council can take a step
towards long needed tax re-
forms by ending the present
unfair basis of taxation. Taxes

Tax policies favor downtown big business.

now are levied on 100: percent
of land and 50 percent of im-
provements for general pur-
poses. This applies to both
homes and profit-making busi;
ness properties and is decided-
ly unfair-to homeowners.

Large profit-making business
properties should be required
to pay at least 75 percent on
improvements instead of the
present 50 percent. Such tax-
ation reform would begin to
shift the base of taxation more
in the direction of ability to
pay, a principle which is now
lacking in civic tax policies.

This is also a Z00d time for
the council to renew its deé-
mand for a Federal-Dominion-
Municipal conference to oper
the whole matter of increased
aid to municipalities by senior
governments.

One thing is obvious. Be-
tween now and March when
the council meets to set the
mill rate, Vancouver citizens
should make their views
known by writing to the city
clerk at the City Hall and de-
manding that there be no it
crease in taxes on homes 1
1957.

@ Profile of Wladislaw Gomulka

EF THE strength to endure

unjust imprisonment not
once but thrice and still to
come forward with courage
and principle unshaken is a

test of leadership, then Wlad-
islaw Gomulka has passed the
test.

His fellow-countrymen ap-
pear to have agreed upon that
for in their most critical mo-
ment since 1939 they have re-
ceived him well on his return
to the leadership of the Polish
United Workers’ party.

No Pole acquainted with
his country’s history in the
past 50 years can be ignorant
that Gomulka is a Polish pat-
riot who has proved his pat-
riotism in action and at the
peril of his life.

Moreover, he is a worker, a
man of the people, and one
who never concealed but al-
ways fought for his political
principles. That these were
socialist is a logical conse-
quence of his life experience.

Wladislaw Gomulka was
born 51 years ago in Krosno,
in the southeast of Poland. His

father was a fitter in an oil
well. At the age of 14 Wladis-
law began work for a plumb-
er.

Two years later he was al-
ready active. He took part in
forming an organization called
the Association of Working
Youth.

The First World War was
past and Poland was a repub-
lic but hardly democratic.
Gomulka, secretary of a trade
union in Galicia at 21, Bot his
first jail sentence for organiz-
ing a May Day demonstration.

‘For it was in May 1926 that
Marshal Pilsudski staged his
coup d’etat andd established
himself as dictator.

Pilsudski’s first target was
the Communists and then the
Socialists, and Wladislaw Go-
mulka found himself among
the many who were persecut-
eded and jailed.

The Communist party, which
Gomulka had joined, went into
underground action, During a
raid in 1932 he was wounded
and sentenced to four years
imprisonment. —

On his release he went to

Upper Silesia, joined the Com-
munist underground, was
again’ caught and sentenced
to seven years. Of those one
and a half were spent in soli-
tary confinement.

Such was the early training
of the political leader who
has now re-emerged at the
head of the Workers’ party.

&
Gomulka was among those
who stayed, endured and
fought against his country’s '
martyrdom under the Nazi oc-
cupation. In Warsaw itself he
worked and fought against the
terror which massacred the

population, Jew and Gentile
alike. :

Some of the exploits attrib-
uted to him may be legendary,
but none the less credible. It
is reported how, after seeing
the public hanging of 50 hos-
tages in the fail of 1942, Go-
mulka produced. hand made
grenades from an underground
laboratory which were hurled
into an assembly of high Ger-
man officers in a fashionable
cafe.

—

Polish premier led war-time resistance

In any event, Gomulka’s re-
cord in fighting the Nazis was
known to the people, and was
an important factor in his first
election to the general sec-
retaryship of the Polish Work-
ers’ party.

Gomulka’s loyalty to the
working class and his country
was widely known, and this
may well have been a reason
why, after his dismissal from

his post in 1948, his expected
trial never took place.

Eager expectations were en-
tertained in some capitalist
quarters.

The Daily Telegraph wrote:
“The Western world will shed
few tears for him but may, in-
deed, derive a certain comfort
from the evidence his coming
trial affords that the Soviet
empire is an uneasy giant with
many weaknesses.” :

If they shed few tears for
him then, they will raise few
cheers for him now, for Go-
mulka’ has made it clear
enough that his patriotism
goes hand in hand along the
socialist road in alliance with
the Soviet Union.

JANUARY 18, 1957 —

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 12