One-sided ‘inflation’ | Pyne their long and oft-repeated ‘“‘dynamic” boom, Socred politicians and appointees are now expressing “deep alarm” at the danger of “inflation”. To head-off this danger they trot out an old and well-worn formula, that of putting a restraining curb on wage and fringe benefit increases. Dr. Gordon Shrum, chairman of B.C. Hydro sounds: off by saying that if labor costs and union fringe benefits continue to rise on the big Columbja and Peace power pro- jects “power rates are going to go up”. In other words, Dr. Shrum instructs all contractors (and employers generally) to re-introduce a stiff “hold-the-line” on wage and fringe benefits in union contracts, and threatens the electric pow- er-user, domestic or industrial, that unless they get in on his anti-union campaign against increased wages, that they will have to pay the shot in higher power rates. Highways Minister Gaglardi joins in on the Shrum “fnflation” dirge by charging that labor costs on the Peace and Columbia have upped Hydro’s original esti- . mates by some $60-million. This, says Flying Phil, cannot “‘be allowed to continue”. Just recently Premier Bennett and Prime Minister Pearson got in on this “inflation” chorus by calling for “restraint by all groups in the economy” lest disaster be- fall us—but put their main emphasis upon the need to “re- strain” wage and fringe benefit increases. Nothing is said by by any of these “inflation” yodel- lers on the super profits of big construction companies, or the super profits extracted by the big building material supply firms, often working together (with government approval) on a “cost-plus” arrangement to extract even higher profits. “Just think,” wails Gaglardi, “the big belt (conveyor) on the Peace dam is being stopped twice a day for coffee breaks.” The concern of Shrum, Gaglardi, Bennett, Pearson et al on the “danger of inflation” has one prime objective in view; that of warning employers of labor, with an element of threat in the warning, to grant no further wage or fringe benefit increases to organized labor. Monopoly profits may soar, the salaries of politicians skyrocket, prices and cost-of-living go into orbit, but the Tom McEWEN or the next five weeks or better there’s one thing the ordinary common people can be definitely sure about — a real big bellyful of pre-election “promises” by aspiring Liberal, Tory and Socred candidates, A “promising” marathon with each entrant striving to out- promise the other, and all rea- ching for a gobful of their special brand of partisan “mud” inorder to make it stick, From break- fast to midnight and after, “Jack Canuck” will be literally buried in an avalanche of “promises,’’ What happens all the “promising” after election day is another story — avery long story. Any reference to the factual historial record, which unfortun- ately too few of us do in these piping times of “affluence,” po- litical corruption and empty “promises” (never intended to be kept), and we’d marvel at our own prolonged native gullability. For nearly a century we have swallowed this old-line partisan soothing syrup with less sus- picion than a baby being given castor oil — and ended up with much the same result, _ In his *pep’’ talk to the Lib- eral Party campaign luncheon in the posh Chateau Laurier on September 21, Prime Minister Pearson stated, among other things: “Our objective is to have full medicare in operation on Canada’s 100th birthday, July 1, 1967, We need a mandate to realize this objective,” That sounds good, very good, and very considerate of the peo- ples’ pressing medicare needs, But it only sounds good if we as naive and forgetful as bumbling Mike hopes we are, : : The reality is however, thatas far back as the year 1919 the late Liberal chieftain Mackenzie King was also making the political At the factory 60 per cent had never seen him; 38 per cent thought he was on holiday; 2 per cent thought he was Father Christmas. The majority of people were unable to identify this. Several thought it was a cure for rheumatism. A number asked what had happened to the old. Daily Herald. | Worth | Quofing Corruption and vise always follo United States army in a foreign lane “Town Magazine’’ (March 1965) ported. After twenty years with bitter war washing around its $v” urbs, Saigon is so rotten that divisions had to be pulled out of countryside to control it. Saigon P' pers on corruption and Americal money. Prostitutes have been forbide “for security reasons” in the belte! — hotels after a bomb, thought to hov! been planted by one of them, reac the fifth floor of the Garavelle Hole But at all hours of the day they ® with American officers on the terra of the Continental Palace, overlook! Saigon’s main square. Sixty per cent said it must be haunted; 35 per cent thought an election was on the way; 5 per cent are in hospital suffering from shock. —CEYLON NEWS REVIEW, July 3, '65. * In an average year, South Afri (Apartheid) prison population is now about 70,000—more than double the British total. An African is four times more likely to be jailed than a white and a Colored citizen about éi times more likely. ; Prison population has neal doubled since 1954. It has now , ed a level where at any one ti there is one prisoner for every * Africans. More than 1,000 Africans are arrested daily for pass offen Fifty per cent thought that he was a she; 45 per cent thought that she was a he. The judge remarked: “40 skil- - lings or seven days!” Prison population today in South workingman must “tighten-his-belt”. must be “restrained” in his desire to win a greater measure of the wealth he alone creates! Otherwise according to the Shrum-Gaglardi chorus, our “dynamic” society goes kaput with their one-sided “inflation” Africa is made up of 55,000 Afri 12,000 Coloreds, 3,000 Whites. —APARTHEID NEWS, 4 Sept., 1965. * * Independence! Premier Ian Smith of Rhodesia, is now in London conferring with Prime Minister Harold Wilson on “independence” for Rhodesia. Smith and his racist “Rhodesian Front’ have issued an ultimatum: if Britain doesn't concede to their demand, they will take it any-~ way tinued “right” of the 219,00) lation to perpetuate its bx’: 000 voteless Africans! welkin ring with a “promise” of medicare if the people would only give him a “mandate,” From then on down to his de- parture from this world to join his revered Spooks in outer ‘space, Mackenzie King headed top-heavy, steam-roller “ma- jority”governments, capable of bringing into being any legis- lation, “promised” or unprom- ised. That we should not forget in this election, Since the first historic year of Confederation both Liberal and Tory governments, more often “majority” than “minority” in their structure and character, have run up a fairly even score on all fronts, whether a pre- election “promising” binge,) scandal and corruption in “high places,” or the sellout of Can- ‘ada’s heritage to Yankee mon- opoly, (On the latter score it may be said that the Socreds, coming much later on the polit- ical scene, have at least achieved ‘¢parity’’ with their old-line sales competitors.) Thus when we hear Mike lam- basting Dief for “obstructing the functions of government,” (the while boasting of his own consid- The “independent” Rhodesia Smith seeks is the con-