Strike” -downright lying and misrep- OF Bill — i TUT mm HU AULALASAULA UG I) TATRA HIME H RULE PUBLIC utility, generaliy speaking, is a profit-making company or corporation which, because of its particular contribu- tion to social life, is -usually granted freedom frem competi- tion — virtual monopoly. Originally these _nickel- grabbing outfits operated with - out restraints other than the charters they received from governments#. and the contracts they made with the cities in which they victimized the populace, The provisions of their charters were evaded when they interfered with profit-making and the contracts they entered into were scandalously broken for the same reason. Their greed made it necessary, in the interests of their “patrons,” to set up public utility commis- sions whose purpose was to pro- tect these same patrons, to regu- late the prices they might charge and to compel the fulfillment of their undertakings as to what they euphemistically call “serv- ice.” Living under the aégis of the BCCollectric here in Vancouver, it is not hard to recognize the hypocritical character of this : . WERE Ananias alive today he _ would be hard put to top the - Pinancial Post in the art of false- hood and distortion. In fact he would appear as an amateurish piker at the game which has now become the mode in sewer journaiism. In its July 31 @dition, thig journal carried a “feature” ar- ticle by one Ron-’ ald Williams on! | ‘Lake Shipping resentation of the Canadian Sea men’s. Union strike on the Great Lakes and the issues involved, this Gouzenko thriller is hard to beat. It contains nothing which can- not be found in any current anti- _ labor, anti-Soviet smear. Similar- ly with its front page editorial en- titled “Communist Noose Ready For Canada,” the Post whips up _ @ wordy hysteria, the main burden of which is that the Communists are in control of most ,. . if not _ all of Canada’s trade unions—-and stand poised to pull the industrial and economic props from under the nation in a violent upheaval at a word from Uncle Joe. A real “menace to our national safety,” croaks the Post. : - Bare mention is made of the fact that the CSU holds collective claim of “service.” Knowing its operations of the past half-cen- tury, one is reminded of the de- scription of a South American mining outfit in one of Joseph Conrad’s novels, Nostroma, “To tear treasure out of the bowels of the land was their desire, with no more moral purpose at the back of them than there is in burglars breaking into a safe.” For many years after all other street car companies in America were controlled, the BCCollectric carried on at its own sweet will. The only changes it made in its business without compulsion was to raise the fares. Even the safe- ty gates to prevent passengers from falling out of sardine-pack- ed cars were only installed when Attorney-General Bowser threat- ened to revoke its charter if this was not done. vi ; But what kind of a public util- ities commission have we got in British Columbia? Its every deci- sion has been to make some kind of a gift to the BCCollectric; a 20-year franchise against the ex- Pressed wishes of the people of Vancouver; the right to boost the tribute the BCCollectric exacts for transportation and. gas, also against the wishes of the people; giving it, over the protests of the people of Vancouver and Burna- by, the use of Boundary Road, which is tantamount to awarding the company the ownership of a Public thoroughfare, for the use “agreements with a score or more shipping companies on the Great Lakes, and that labor-manage- ment relations between those com- panies and the CSU have been sat- isfactory to both and to the gen- eral well-being of Great Lakes shipping. A great deal of color goes into the. portraying of the Canada Steamship Lines and Mi- sener (the two shipping companies spearheading the Canadian Man- ufacturers’ Association’s No. One union-busting campaign) as the innocent. victims of'a diabolical in- ternational communist conspir- acy. Proof: A “document” is dis- covered showing “Communist control” of the CSU—a “direct- ive” on organizing the seamen, issued by the Workers’ Unity ‘League. The Post doesn’t con- sider it necessary to mention the fact that the WUL disband- ed 15 years ago. To do so would Spoil the Post’s “plot”, Instead we get all the gory details about Communist “under-cover men” in the shipping industry, with J. B. Salsberg, MLA, as the “commanding commissar of LPP labor union activity. The CSU is his baby.” Canada Steamship Lines and Captain Meisener are presented as honest-to- goodness patriots. Meisener parades the death of his son in the Second World War as “reason” why he refuses to deal with the CSU. What Meisener and the Post conveniently forget is the fact that hundreds of seamen Published Weekly at 650 Howe Street By THE TRIBUNE PUBLISHING COMPANY LTD. Telephones: Editorial, MA. 5857; Business, MA. 5288 Tom MoEiwen .... 4.3 Dee a ee Editor Subscription Rates: 1 Year, $2.50; 6 Months, $1.35. Printed by Union Printers Ltd. 650 Howe Street, Vancouver, B.C, QA Short Jabs AACA of a thing is all that is involved in ownership. The latest insult to the city from the PUC is the statement that the Civic Reform Associa- tion is 4 political party and is not considered an “interested party” in hearings regarding the fares of the BCCollectric, © The Non-Partisan Association runs its candidates for city coun- cil (among them stooges for the BCCollectric), under the slogan, “Keep Politics Out of the City Hall.” The CRA is no more poli- tical than the NPA, but it pleases the PUC to use this political ar- gument to keep out of any investi- gation, the case against the BC Collectric increase in fares. Dr. ‘Carrothers says that the CRA is “a front for the LPP.” It seems to many people in BC that the PUC is a front for the BCCollec- tric. And even if the CRA is in politics, what of it? The BCCol- lectric is in politics up to its eyes. In spite of Dr. Carrothers’ in- terpretation of the act, the CRA .is an “interested party.” That is why its candidate for mayor in the last city election, Effie Jones, mayor of East Vancouver and a large part of the rest of the city, running on a straight BCCollec- tric issue, polled almost 19,000 votes, The CRA represents these 19,000 “interested” citizens of Van- couver and if the PUC will not listen to them we will have to take steps to get rid of the PUC. s We See It UU TAT also died in that war for the right to organize and bargain collectively through constitutional and democratic processes—instru- ments which the CSL and Meisen- er and the Post, chose to ignore, as can be readily seen by refer- ence to the Brockington-McNish award on the Great Lakes’ dis- pute. That report places full re- sponsibility and blame upon the Canada Steamship Lines and Mei- sener, and not upon the CSU. @ _ Since the Post boasted this par- ticular edition was so popular that extra copies had to be run off, it would seem that the diatribe points up two main needs for working men and women: to read, support and extend the Pacific Tribune as the only effective antii- dote to this CMA poison, and, to recognize that the struggle of the Canadian Seamen’s Union on the Great Lakes is no longer the pri- vate concern of seamen alone. Federal government spokesmen, together with Drew of Ontario, allied with the shipowners and _ the Financial’ Post, and every re- actionary interest, are hell-bent on smashing the CSU under cover of an inspired red smear. Even so-called labor” leaders like Con- roy of the CCL add their voice to the red-baiting din. They magnify the “violence” of seamen defend- ing their union and themselves from the Sullivan goon squads, hired and paid for by big busi- ness! But they only “deplore” the murderous use of shotguns, live steam, and other means of vio- lence against the CSU by the ship- owners and their hirelings. Thus far the CSU, practically alone, has faced the organized might of big business and govern- mental chicanery, The new Phase demands that all Labor begin to act ... to recognize a funda- mental truth, that in the final out- come of the CSU struggle on the Great Lakes, the future prosperity Alberta elections N Alberta this week the Social Credit government of Premier E, C. Manning has been reelected for the fourth © consecutive term. No major political group, not even except- ing the CCF, presented any broad challenge to Social Credit policies despite the fact that these have been under the sharpest criticism by organized labor and farmers in Alberta. This opposition is clearly seen in the election returns of many Alberta constituencies, where the Social Credit candidate. won the élection on a minority of first choice votes. The one great lesson pointed up in the Alberta election is the need of a unified working agreement between labor, farmer, and other progressive groupings. Manning’s anti- labor Bill 91, which parallels Bill 87 in British Columbia; his strike-breaking record in the farmer’s “non-delivery” strike of 1946; his handing over the great oil resources of Alberta to Imperial Oil all these and other measures have incensed the Alberta people and transformed the orig- inal rosy chimeras of Social Credit into a cloak for reaction- ary policies. This explains the tremendous opposition vote in the countryside, as well as in the main centers of Calgary, Edmonton, Lethbridge. The Liberals, carrying the ball for the discredited old- _line parties, elected only their leader, and the ‘Independents’ who in past years played this part, were no more successful in the handful of candidates they ran where they would not clash with the Liberals. The true-blue tories, realizing they hadn’t a chance, but seeing a reflection of themselves in reactionary Social Credit, found better opportunities for preserving toryism by -working for Manning’s “basic divi- dends”—which so far only the monopolies have collected in fat concessions: , The CCF did not attempt to mobolize the widespread dissatisfaction against Social Credit. Instead it concentrated — its big guns to assure defeat of the two LPP’ers running in Calgary and Pincher Creek. At that, the LPP’er Ben Swankey topped the CCF’er in the latter riding. ‘Together, with a united policy for the election of a CCF-Labor-Farmer government, they could have defeated the Social Creditor, not only in Pincher Creek, but in numerous other Alberta constituencies. Had the CCF pursued a policy of unity for progressive government, the frustration, confusion, and divided vote which marked the Alberta elections, would have resulted, not in a minority-vote victory for the Manning government, but a resounding defeat for reaction and progressive, gov- ernment for our neighbor province. « ____Isn’t that nice? Junior got ‘A’ in business admin- istration because he knew how to spell injunction.” Looking backward (From the files of the People’s Advocate, August 19, 1938) : —PRINCE RUPERT, B.C. Premier T, D.Pattully is not popular even with Liberals im his own constituency of Prince Rupert. His capitulation to big busines? on many vital issues and his failure to implement election pledgeS this week drew severe censure from Prince Rupert District ; Association, which declared the .provincial government's policy 0 cally opposed to the fundamental principles of Liberalism. --A resolution passed by the association demands that the gover™- ment abandon its present policies and adopt those more in line The resolution, which will be placed before the seers Coe mittee at the Liberal convention in Kelowna this month, concludes: “This association recommends to the convention to be held at Kelowna — the adoption of a policy which will extend to every citizen the meats of acquiring mastery of his own capacity amd of establishing re!