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EDITORIAL

From riches to rags

ost of the dynamism, affluence and other superlative
a. which used to pour out of “Prime Minister”
Bennett’s office like a spring flood, has dried up. The “come on™ smile
which used to grace his endless hozannas anent ‘‘Beautiful British
Columbia” and its cornucopia of plenty for all, has also faded. The
“Prime Minister’s’’ austerity smile now resembles nothing.so much as
a patient in a dentist's chair trying to look brave while awaiting the
extraction of an oversized molar.

With the devaluation of the British pound as a barometer of the
shape of things to come and Finance Minister Mitchell Sharp's new
austerity tax-extracting budget, to which “Prime Minister’ nee
Finance Minister Bennett has given his pontificial blessing, all and
sundry are now being exhorted to tighten their belts. go slow on

badly needed social services. And most important of all, that working
people refrain from seeking any more wage increases, supposedly the
real key to beating inflation.

In addition to all this, to have faith in the Bennett government which
led B.C. into this ‘‘unforseen’’ mess, to lead it back out again.

Over the weekend Bennett’s gold-dust twin, attorney-general
Bonner, sounded off in a TV interview with the fain outline of ‘‘a plan”
whereby B.C. and the rest of Canada can extricate itself from the
inflation dilemma — a plan in which all financial wizards are in full
accord; viz; a voluntary commitment by organized labor toa proposed
government-employer loaded board, that from now on in labor will
forego any further wage demands, and perhaps, just to demonstrate its
‘patriotism’, announce its readiness to accept a wage cut — over and
above what it will lose with a devaluated dollar and soaring prices.

Such a “plan’’ would undoubtedly restore the “Prime Minister’s”’
dynamic smile, restore confidence where it hasn’t required restoring
up until now if monopoly profit balance sheets are any indicator,
continue undisturbed our$12-billion down the arms drain annually, and
hit the working people, professional and small business — with all their
hopes for social and economic advance, right where the proverbial
chicken got it — in the neck.

From the highest pinnacle of heavenly affluence where our “Prime
Minister’”’ used to warble with angelic piety, we now hear his sepulcher
voice sans smile, warning of a new hell of inflated austerity — from
which we can all be ‘‘saved’’, but only if we ask less, eat less, expect
less and accept less — then leave it to Moses Bennett to lead us deeper
into the wilderness of diminishing dollars and tigher belts.

No wonder almost every municipal council, school board, parks,
hospital or others, faced with the responsibility of local public services
in B.C., groan every time the “Prime Minister’’ discards his erstwhile
hopped-up dynamics and dons a doleful funeral lament about the evil of
“living beyond our means’’.

No wonder also that his financial wizardry is becoming highly
suspect, moreso than ever now since his about-face from dynamic-
affluence to doleful dirge; all a clear indicator of the long Socred
debacle which has brought ‘‘Beautiful British Columbia” to the brink
of economic and social catastrophe.

Truly the Socred chickens are now coming home to roost.

spending, curtail social services, cut back on school, hospital and other |

McEWEN

t all began when a couple
of hardworking American
housewives from down Oregon way

Happily our womenfolk, whether
American or Canadian, strongly
resent being so deprived of newly

decided to have a brief holiday in
Vancouver last summer, away from
the family chores at home. While
here, like most visitors from the U.S.
and other places, they decided to
browse and shop around a bit in
Vancouver’s magnetic Chinatown.

Not forgetting their friends and
neighbors at home, these two
American housewives thought it
would be nice to take back a few
small gifts, mebby a half-a-dozen
Chinese soup bowls with spoons to
match, all neatly and tastefully gift-
wrapped.

“Aha”, growled Uncle Sam as his
two erring daughters unpacked their
bags at the U.S. Customs for
inspection, ‘trading with the enemy
again I see”, whereupon Uncle Sam
promptly confiscated the Chinese
soup bowls and spoons, doubtless in a
heroic attempt to safeguard his two
wayward daughters from

purchased dinnerware, which has no
more connection with Communism
or some mythical ‘“‘enemy” than a
monopoly press has with truth.

In such situations there is only one
thing to do, and the family deprived
of the soup bowls did it pronto: a
letter of protest to their Senator.
Then a chain of letters coming full-
cycle. The senator wrote a letter to
the U.S. Treasury Department on the
soup bowl confiscation issue, the
Treasury Department wrote a letter
to the senator ‘‘explaining’’. the
confiscation, the senator wrote a
letter to the irate citizens, and
everything is back to normal — with
the Chinese soup bowls and spoons
back where they belong.

But just in order that there should
be no wrong conclusions drawn as to
who ‘‘won the war’’, the Treasury
Department felt it necessary to
elaborate somewhat on this Chinese
soup bowl “‘Dienbienphu”’.

City-owned asphalt plant
would save tax dollars

By ALD. H. RANKIN

City Council has before it a well
documented report from the city's
engineering department recom-
mending that the city replace
its old asphalt plant with a
completely new automated plant at
an estimated cost of $276,000. It
would produce about 60,000 tons of
asphalt mix annually, used primarily
for street maintenance.

The advantages to the city from a
new: plant as outlined by city
engineers will be many.

The cost of surface mix per ton
from a city owned plant would be
*$4.88. Purchased from privately
owned plants, the same asphalt
would cost $6.05 to $7.04 per ton. A
city owned plant could therefore
save taxpayers from $70,000 -
$130,000 a year, or about one million
dollars in a 10 year period.

With our own plant there will be no

. waiting period while other

customers are attended to. We will
get immediate production and

‘\ delivery of exactly the type of

asphalt mix we need when we need
it, anot unimportant factor when you
bear in mind that asphalt cannot be _
applied in wet weather.

With a plant of our own we won't
need inspectors to check on
specifications of privately supplied
asphalt to prevent chiselling on
quantity and quality.

If we require more asphalt than we
can produce (for new streets, for
example) the fact that we have a

plant of our own and know the cost of
production will keep bidding
competitive and prevent price fixing
by private interests at the city’s
expense.

But in spite of these many clear
advantages to the city, the
recommendations to build our own
plant is opposed by several groups.

One of these includes the Pacific
Asphalt Paving Asslciation and the
B.C. Road Builders Association.
They represent. big asphalt
manufacturing firms in this area.
Their reason for opposing a city.
owned plant is obvious — they want
the very profitable business of
selling asphalt to the city at their
own high prices.

The other group includes the
Teamsters Joint Council No. 36 and
the Building & Construction Trades
Council who have sent letters to
Council endorsing the briefs of the
private asphalt manufacturers. If
private interests supplied asphalt to
the city, presumably the members of -
their unions would get the jobs
presently held by civic outside
workers employed by the city. There
is little doubt that civic workers will
resent and strongly oppose any
attempt to raid their jobs.

In my opinion we should build the
new asphalt plant without delay. We
have no right to play around with the
taxpayers’ dollars. As far as I am
concerned, a dollar saved is as good
as a dollar earned any day.

‘Vietna
fop mora
o J
issue

independence.

“The merchandise in question was
detained by Customs pursuant to
Section 500, 204 (sure a lot of
Sections) of the Foreign Assets
Control Regulations. A basic purpose
of these Regulations is to prevent
Communist China, North Korea and
North Vietnam from acquiring
foreign exchange by the sale of
merchandise, directly or indirectly,
to persons in the United States.
Accordingly the Regulations prohibit
the unlicensed purchase and
importation of all merchandise of
mainland China, North Korean and
North Vietnam origin.

“They also prohibit the unlicensed
purchase and importation from all
countries’ of certain merchandise
which has historically teen supplied
to the United States principally from
mainland China, and the unlicensed
purchase and importation of
additional types of merchandise
which have been located in Hong
Kong, Macao or any Soviet bloc
country. The prohibitions apply
regardless of where the merchandise
is alleged to have originated. The
Department generally does not
license the importation of
merchandise subject to the

prohibitions except with appropriate

proof of its non-Communist origin.

“We have made extensive efforts
to bring these restrictions to the
_ attention of American tourists _

visiting the Far Bast . . . etc., etc.,
ete.”

Our readers will agree the above
is one hell of a pile of official
gobbledegook to wrap half-a-dozen
small Chinese soup bowls in, which
for all the U.S. Treasury Department
or we know, could have been made in
their own Chiang Kia-shek’s
Formosa — and that’s no way to
treat ‘‘a great democrat and valiant
ally’’ of these United States.

It is indeed fortunate for our two
charming American housewives that
“they were merely touring
Vancouver’s ‘Chinatown instead of
“visiting the Far East’’, otherwise
the fate of those Chinese bowls might
have been as difficult to determine
as the winning of a U.S. ‘‘victory”’ in

“The Vietnam war 1S the
moral crisis of our genera
involves not only the dest
people but will determine ™
people all over the world —
Canadians.” :

These were the words
Murphy, editor of the ’
Tribune, as he spoke t04 PP
in Vancouver's Hastings
last Sunday night. Murphy
series of successful melt?
coast and is now ‘“toutl
Interior. He has taken part
open line radio programs as

One gets two impressions
Vietnam, Murphy said. ¥
death, destruction, su
tragedy as a result 0
and illegal bombin8 .
Vietnam by the U.S.

The other impressio™
foreigners seems incr’
high sense of confidence ®
people and their ability 1
any situation to win thet

He said the Vietnamese
over-awed by U.S. ee
resent war as 4 ae
site centuries-old strue
independence. In vietna®
U.S. President Johnsom
choices: To pull out nowte
small defeat — or PU i oe
accept a big defeat.

Murphy described the
U.S. bombing in areas he
said it was much wore
North Vietnam “you ©
He showed the audience
anti-personell bombs ©
the U.S. which are dS
the civilian population:

Describing pe

Vietnamese are a
bombing, he said the cr
people is unbelievable
quickly replac et tals
bridges, schools, osP
industries have gone Ur

“He said Red Clg
spoke to in’ Hanol
appreciation t0 ©
sending of medical ;
clothing.

=
>

see

Vietnam. Of course
could always break ee
even if they cae
Vietnamese.

x#*

Confiscating #04
China bowls from ,
housewife is merely as pe
Walter LipPm? Ko
comments in News? g be
“There is grow! jg 00
* Johnson’s America © tha
historic America nich
bastard empit€ | g
superior force \
purposes, and !S i 5 wis
an example 0 —
humanity of af

° el.
Well and truly spok

Editor—TOM McEWEN

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Associate Editor
Published weekly at Ford Bldg., Mezzanine No.
Vancouver 4, B.C. Phone 685-5288.

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