1 —tThe Barker, : EDITORIAL | A never-ending battle ast Saturday’s ‘‘loiter-in’’ at Vancouver’s Courthouse foun- tain confirmed once again the time-honored principle that “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty’. A cryptic Scot, one of the immortal leaders of the 1837 Upper Canada rebellion put it in other words, which also hold good to this day: ‘“‘Let no one trifle with your rights’. Some three weeks ago seventeen young citizens, presumed to be Hippies because of their choice of dress and style, were arrested on open “John Doe” warrants and charged with “loitering” in a public place. Names of those arrested were filled in by police authorities after the arrests, highly illegal and undemocratic procedure, more in keeping in a fascist police state than a boasted ‘‘democracy.”’ At Saturday’s protest rally at the fountain there were close to one thousand well-dressed citizens, university students, Hippies, men and women from Vancouver’s professional circles: a repre- sentative cross-section of citizenry. No one was arrested. No ‘‘disturbances’’ were reported (there had been none three weeks earlier). There were ‘‘no loitering’’ signs but these disturbed no one. Official reaction and the police ‘‘looked the other way’’, much as though the gravity of their earlier violation of citizen rights had begun to sink in; viz, that Hippie or non-hippie, the right of the citizen to enjoy the peaceful environment of any spot build for the cultural or esthetic enjoyment of the public must re- main inviolate. - One thousand citizens came to support that right — and ten or twenty thousand more will come if need be to see that it is not destroyed by reaction. ‘Knights’ of labor? our byelections in Britain last week turned thumbs down on Fit: the Wilson Labor government and voted Tory. Three of the four seats had previously been held by Labor, one for 22-years or more. : Hard on the heels of a devaluated currency gold crisis, a wage freeze decree, skyrocketting prices and criminal war expenditures, coupled with a blind subservience to U.S. -war policies in Vietnam, these four byelection results in one week indicate better that any- thing else could, the disaster Wilson’s economic and foreign policies have brought upon Britain and the British people. Hence they are deserting Wilson by the tens of thousands, with only a ‘‘Hobson’s Choice”’ of voting Tory, Bee with the idea that it ‘‘won’t be better — but can’t be worse”’ To ‘Socialist’? Harold Wilson the very mention of the word . Socialism has become a heresy, while the voice of British and U.S. financial royalists and war makers has become unchallenged “‘law’’. Already numerous British papers report Wilson shying away from facing working class..audiences in futile attempts to defend his policies. And as the Wilson Labor government stock drops radically on the hustings, British industrial areas declared “‘derelict’’ in- - | crease daily. Even Robbie Burns’ ‘Bonnie Doon’”’ is now a “‘derelict”’ area for its jobless coal miners. Shades of Kier Hardie! “See : SSeehENEETT Tribune West ‘Coast edition Canadian eopene: Associate Editor—MAURICE RUSH Editor—TOM McEWEN Published weekly at Ford Bldg., Mezzanine No. 3, 193 E. Hastings St., Vancouver 4, B.C. Phone 685-5288. = Subscription Rate: Canada, $5.00 one year; $2.75 for six months. North and South America and Commonwealth countries, $6.00 one year. All other countries, $7.00 one year. Authorized as second class mail by the Post Office Department, Ottawa, and for payment of postage in cash. BSS ° IST DAUDAG—Baeh VS ligA se Financial groups block NHL hockey in Vancouver By ALD. H. RANKIN Vancouver hockey fans, and they number many thousands, want an NHL team located in our city. But apparently the NHL Establishment has decreed otherwise. It has turned a cold shoulder to the bid of Labatt Breweries, who just bought a controlling interest in the Oakland Seals, to move the Seals’ franchise to Vancouver. Leading the opposition against Vancouver, just as they did in 1966 when the NHL expanded from 6 to 12 teams, are the wealthy owners of the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Montreal Canadiens. The reason is as simple as it is selfish and unpatriotic. They can make more money from TV rights by keeping the NHL teams in the U.S. than they can by expanding into other Canadian cities. And so Canada, where hockey was born and developed into a fine art, where all the NHL players come from, has only two NHL teams while the U.S. has ten. That's typical of the barons who run the NHL. They operaie a closely knit combine, exploiting the public and treating their own players like serfs. Few NHL players have any security. They can be sold to another . team like slaves at any time; they must be willing to pack up and move on a few hours notice to another city regardless of family considerations. Should any player refuse to sign a contract to the team which owns him, or refuse to-go to another team when sold, he is blacklisted throughout the professional hockey world and can’t play hockey again. It’s time this hockey combine was broken up. NHL teams should be established in any Canadian city that wants one and can support it financially. Professional hockey players must be granted full citizenship and bargaining rights and no longer subjected to slave contracts that clearly violate all concepts of the rights of the individual in Canada. : Our Pacific Coliseum, the finest hockey arena in Canada, is very much involved in present campaigns to bring an NHL team here. The Coliseum was built and paid for by the taxpayers of Vancouver. No professional hockey club, whether an NHL team or the Vancouver -Canucks, should be given an exclusive monopoly on the use of the Coliseum for hockey. Rent at a reasonable price, yes, but monopoly control, no. : City Council and the PNE should take steps to promote amateur hockey a good deal more, especially among the youngsters who show such a dedicated enthusiasm for Canada’s national game. Why shouldn’t we have one of Canada’s national amateur,teams based here? And why shouldn’t we invite teams from the Soviet Union, Finland, Sweden, Czechoslovakia, East and West Germany to play exhibition games here more often? They play a first. class brand of crowd pleasing hockey and would be well supported by the public. The City’ and provincial government should both make generous grants to promote amateur _ hockey in Vancouver and throughout the province. CRUMBLING $ ITS EFFECT ON YOU HEAR WM. KASHTAN Nat'l, Leader, Communist Party of Canada SUNDAY — APRIL 7 — 8 P.M. STRY HALL 125 E. 8th Ave., Vancouver ALL WELCOME AUSP: VAN. CITY C’TTEE., CPC. aa /pimeneceremermeni | PROGRAM ‘A unique contribution to Vancouver politics’ Above is the cover of a 35-page pamphlet ‘‘A Program for Vancouver’’just issued by Alderman Harry Rankin. It is a unique contribution to civic politics in Vancouver. While the NPA continues to insist that it doesn’t need a program, and the new civic political party TEAM argues that it has one (but still hasn’t come out with one), Harry Rankin has issued a clear cut program covering all the vital issues in civic life. > It contains proposals for cutting taxes on homes; solving the housing crisis; protection for tenants: a rapid-transit system; improved hospital facilities; pollution control; extending civic democracy; amalgamation of Vancouver and Burnaby, and a 15 year plan for the development of Vancouver. Rankin’s imaginative ideas should cause a good deal of public debate, and that would be all to the good. His central theme is that Vancouver belongs to the people, not to the elite - few who comprise’ the Establishment, and that the people must take the affairs of the city into their own hands. Concisely written, and livened up with pithy cartoons, the pamphlet is bound to make a decided impact on civic politics in Vancouver. The pamphlet sells for 50¢ and is available at the Co-op Bookstore and other newstands. Copies are also ~ available from Mrs. P. Chunn, at Rankin’s law firm offices at Rm. 210 in the Ford Bldg., 193 E. Hastings St. ° afi bri esihuant ¢ ee ae