Mosher evades wages, rights, i |
peace issues at CCL rally il

Canadian Congress of Labor unions mobilized 1700 of their members and members’ families Pi
Tuesday night at the Exhibition Gardens to hear CCL president Aaron Mosher and_ political action
director Murray Cotterill urge them to vote CCF “for a new order.”

The meet climaxed a week-end CCL educational institute. It was the first major attempt of oa :
CCL top brass to stage a public show of strength in Vancouver behind their political party. ‘|

Both Cotterill and Mosher’s re- LTE
marks were as much significant | mored by speakers already com-, have sufferd and did from invol- |
for what they avoided saying as} mitted to support the Atlantic “Sui-|untary poverty than on the battle-
for what they said. cide” Pact had it not been raised | fields of the world.”

|
Main theme ofboth was: the em-| PY 2 worker from the floor. Context clarified this state- ; }

Many residents at Grand Forks are beginning to fear al-

ployers took political action through
restrictive labor codes, therefore
labor must take “political counter
action” through voting CCF.

That the listeners applauded de-
nunciations of “free -enterprise”’
showed their desire for progress.
That the speakers painstakingly
avoided all the burning immediate
issues facing the CCL membership

This worker became upset at the
sight of scabherder Stuart Alsbury
among a “Glee “Club,” headed by
Steelworkers’ publicity director
Howard Conquergood, which tried
to sing such battle-honored labor
songs as “Solidarity Forever.”

“Why can’t you sing a song for
peace?” he demanded. “You've be-
trayed the unions that men have

‘ment as close to an open admis-

sion of willingness to plunge Can-
ada into war by misleading work-

ers with hopes of secondary re- “

forms. Should labor ever follow
this path, cities like Vancouver
might not survive te see it cor-
rected.

“IT have sat» down,” said Mosher,

ready that the Kootenay River will break into their homes
again this spring as it did last year as shown above. They
Compare the snow already in the hills with that accumulated
by last Many—and they fear the worst.

: i “with employers more broadmind-
died for. : ed than some elements in labor. . .

“Let’s go,” announced Mike Se-
kora, George Home and Jim.Bury
as they went over to keep him
quiet, followed a minute later by
a group of ushers with big “CCL”
armbands.

Nothing daunted, the worker per-
sisted in wanting to ask a ques-
tion after Murray Cotterill spoke.
He found himself thwarted by a
continuance of Conquergood’s stage
show (which had six instalments)
and a magician (self-confessed and
competent as distinct from political
sleight-of-hand artists on the same
platform), who— together with an
organist playing a “Bay” organ—
consumed almost two out of the
three and a half hours the meeting

showed that the listeners were be-
ing led in the wrong direction

With average wages in manufac-
turing running $30 behind the
weekly amount needed to keep a
family in health and decency, no
speakers uttered a word about a
wage program for 1949.

Likewise, there was silence on
the fight of the militant Mine-Mill
union to save itself from being
gobbled up by CCL bureaucrats,
paced by Steelworkers like Cotterill
who have yet to sign up 84,000 un-
organized steelworkers, in Canada.

On the immediate fight for 1a-
bor’s rights, with Canada’s jails
containing daily more seamen, tex-
tile workers, woodworkers, asbes-
tos workers and others—here, too,

“There is no bigger bulwark in ft
this country against communism H
and all its efforts than the CCF j
and CCL.” oa |

Cotterill had described the week-
end institute as “spending two days :
with job stewards and officers — ff F
studying how to become good poli- a
ticians. .. . raise the funds and get | ;
out the vote.” 2 itt

‘ At 11:20 when Mosher concluded, _ |
one lucky worker won a Chester- Lie
field on an entrance ticket which i
‘all those present ‘had kept till ue
then. Twenty-five others had al- ;
ready won prizes at intervals. The i |
other 1674 left with Mosher’s ad-

Flood peril mounting
in hills of Intertor

By BRUCE MICKLEBURGH
—KAMLOOPS, B.C.

From the Crow’s Nest Pass to the Kootenays, from the
Okanagan to the Thompson and the Fraser, scores of thousands _
of residents of British Columbia’s river valleys are fearful of

1949 floods that may prove even worse than the disaster of 1948.

communities that the watersheds
or more snow and ice as that
which produced the record run-
offs of last year.

In such districts as Kamloops
old-time farmers relate that
even’ before winter came the
ground was already soaked with
water to the saturation point.

Such official information as is
available gives good grounds for
alarm.

Take a typical creek, one of
hundreds that gather up the wa-
ter for the mighty Okanagan
Lake and River. The snow at
Dickson Dam on B.X. Creek
near Vernon has been measured
by Vernon’s City Engineer F. G.
deWolf as 40 inches as of Feb-
Yuary 21.

DeWolf says this snow has
a water content of seven and
three-quarter inches, “100 per-
_cent more than usual.”

His figures are considered in-
teresting because the case is
typical. He says the run-off will
approximate 300,000,000 gallons
from a, reservoir built for 70,000,-
000 gallons. This not only means
a threat to local basements —
it is indicative of potential ex-
cessive runoff throughout the
valley. :

Average snowfall for normal
winters is 45.5 inches at Vernon.
Total snowfall this year up to
February 22 was 57.7 inches —
with double water content as

\ noted above. | f

: Okanagan Valley flood con-
troller A. L. Carruthers warn-
ed the Victoria Branch of the

Engineering Institute that “all
Signs point toward a flood,
the land is saturated, and
Okanagan Lake is at high
: leve ? te

The fundamental problem of
flood control in the Okanagan
Valley has not yet. been solved,
namely the problem that if wa-
ter is emptied from Okanagan
Lake fast enough to save such
lakeside communities as Kelow-
‘na from flood, then communi-
ties in the Oliver-Osoyoos dist-
“Yict on the river below the Lake
face flood peril, On: the other
hand if the spillage is held up

eee

Precipitation reports for the most wintry February in recent
years are not available, but people will tell you in a hundred

are already laden with as much

to save the river communities,
the lake communities are threat-
ened.

Extension of flood control in
the hills is considered one way
to improve the situation. But it
would be difficult to tie this
project with irrigation .to ex-
tend the crop area because Mar-

‘shall Plan restrictions already

thwart marketing even the ex-
isting crop. Yet there are mil-
lions of children in the world
whose cheeks could be rosy if
they could get millions of addi-
tional boxes of Okanagan apples
as a result of an independent
trading policy for Canada.
Other communities flood-swept
in 1948 are equally apprehensive,
including Michel-Natal, Kimber-
ley, Trail, Grand Forks, Cres-
ton and Kamloops.
_ North Kamloops appears to
be in particular danger, with
little in the way of dyking to
guard against a potential ram-
page of the Thompson River.
The Kamloops LPP has de-
manded immediate govern- .
ment action against this men-
ace, é
Some hard-bitten veterans of
treatment by old-line party ad-
ministrations loudly proclaim
their dark suspicions that dykes
are not being put into shape
mow because it would cost
wages, whereas there will be
plenty of volunteers if and whén
the peril reaches the doorsteps.
They also demand to know
where are even the rudimentary
beginnings of the vast overall
‘river control schemes sketched
over the airwaves and in the
dailies last summer by Finance
Minister “Act of God” Anscomb
and Lands and Forest Steals
Minister E. T. Kenney?
Everybody fervently hopes
for a sustained runoff from now
till spring to carry away the
millions of tons of watery dis- .
aster accumulating in the hills.
But no government with any
scrap of responsibility to the
people dare pin its faith on this
as a safeguard. Nobody else is.

there was no action. Presumably
this to could be left simply to the
marking of an “XX” for CCF can-
dates imposed on labor from the
outside.

The nation’s greatest need—
peace—would have been. stonily ig-

¢ d

Last year the Pacific Tribune be-
came known to many for the im-
portant part it played during the
flood disaster. We urgently warned
the government to take all-out co-
ordinated action, action that fin-

ally came too late to avoid unne-
cessary hardship for thousands.

We paced the fight for 100 per-
cent compensation for all flood
losses, for river control to guaran-
tee no future disasters, for such
immediate safeguards as_ strong
dykes and dredging.

Our readers know that much of
the compensation that has been
given would not have been given
were it not for the fight of which
we were a part.

We feel the same way about
what dyking has been done—but
we feel that dyking is very unsat-
isfactory and that the need for
overall river control remains.

We accept no more now than we
did at the time the Tory Anscomb’s
castigation of LPP leader Nigel
Morgan who dared to criticize the
government instead of blaming the
government’s criminal negligence
on an “act of God.”

We earnestly hope there will be

|no floods this spring. But, as the

accompanying article shows, that
‘danger does exist.

For the people to make sure that
the danger is guarded against, the
first thing needed is to bring out

| the facts.

We appeal to our readers who
live in areas likely to be affected
to help us do just that.

Sit down and write a letter to the
editor. State what the situation is
in your district. Is there a danger?
Has it been taken care of? If not,
what do you and your neighbors
think needs to be done?

We hope you will help us to
perform a valuable public service
here. Don’t worry about the gram-

mar. Just give us the information.

lasted. ‘

Mosher, in the course of his
speech, said: “A member of the
union of booze drinkers is anxious
for a word on peace. ... There are
worse things than war. More people

“'T. AU
‘ 21 Years’ Service

bought the paper.
Southams took over.

my job. :

printers.

ference table in good faith.”

PRINTER’

‘| HAVE BEEN ON THE

PICKET LINE

AROUND THE

DAILY PROVINCE

FOR 32 MONTHS

“Until I was forced on the picket line by the Southam
Co. in June, 1946. I had worked in the composing room of
the Daily Province for 21 years.

“I contributed my fair share to the building of the
Province, and I worked there long before the Southams of
Montreal moved into Vancouver with their millions and
There never was any trouble until the

“Southams rewarded my lifetime of service with 32
months on the picket line, obtained a court injunction, sued
> members of my union for damages in the Supreme Court

and imported individuals from all over Canada to take ;

“I am still on the picket

We will be there until the Southam Co. will ;
abandon its union-wrecking policy and sit around the con-

| ASK YOUR SUPPORT

DAM
WV LT.

4

“ow

line with my fellow IL.T.U.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — MARCH “ 1949 — PAGE 7

vice and some fair entertainment. F
Militant .unionists were left to | :
ponder. the fact that the over-
whelming majority of those present
could be won to fight for policies
of struggle—provided they were
reached on the basis of issues.

LS