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is the word that de-
S unemployment
The unemployment rate
rd & per cent .

Earnings rise $3 millio
Ui for six months of

ths

ce)
Fibs facie, mre

Vie’, Executive Director of
Bc 7 General Hospital in
“Woe : Embert van Tilburg, is
- ating OR Saying that tight oper-
Covernneeets Set by the Bennett

~ Ineres Ment have not permitted
teased in staff to meet. in-
| ve Re svotsload. No new beds
in 29 ae added to the hospital
have dans, Government policies
of the uSed such a deterioration
longer stitution that he no
ity fo, 0" take the responsibil-
_ Providing a safe level of
ton Suty ened his resigna-

. oe *
tion sacntario Hospital Associa-
of gyn 4S that only an injection
funds frullion more in hospital
The nee the Ontario Govern-
Cllanse Year can prevent a
ough ‘t This will only be
 Mesent 4 Mhaintain services at

fo exparc It will not allow

i ;
tflecte financial squeeze-play is
ang Pondite the work-load, pay
tts, tions of hospital work-
Where , 2S reached the point
ah onnorkers cannot take it
ed ae That has been prov-
ee defiance of govern-
qttatig porike. legislation in
Jos Y hospital workers at

Ose
in ot d Western Hospitals

On or new programs.

nh
the eancbant management of
'0 499 Hospital fired close
Ieting- Workers, The human suf-
“teateg 4 feeling and mistrust
Main ae Y this action will re-
a Bink ¢ long time regardless
trugate. nal Outcome of this

ere ; 3
Shou, * 18 no réason why this
 “tntry “Ye to be in this rich
' * being Where fabulous wealth
athered and corporate

Squeeze put on hospitals

after-tax profits for the second
quarter of this year is up by
24% and continues to rise.

The crocodile tears shed by
the mass media ostensibly for
the poor taxpayer has to be tak-
en with more than a grain of
salt. It is the filthy rich tax-
payers and the monopolies they
speak for. It is the sacred cow
of monopoly profits that dictates
the policy of retrenchment in ap-
propriations for hospitals and
health care. At the same time
governments seem to have bot-
tomless treasuries when it comes
to subsidizing big business.

The time has surely come to
reverse priorities. Better still,
curb the monopolies and place
people’s needs ahead of profits
for the greedy.

3-month profit
hits $812 million

From January 1 to March
31, 1972, profits of 426 com-
panies in Canada totalled
$818.1 million. That’s after
taxes, an increase of more
than 36% over last year when
they cleared a mere $596 mil-
lion.

There is no excuse for our
governments -continuing — to
fatten the monopolies at the
expense of real needs, such
as hospitals, housing and ade-
quate incomes. Mr. Rich may
scream “socialism!” and it’s
true socialist countries use
money from business activ-
ity to provide people’s needs,
but in socialism the working
people own the system, which
is something else again.

Pacific Tribune

West Coast edition, Canadian Tribune

Publish ai Editor — MAURICE RUSH ;

Weekly at Ford Bldg., Mezzanine No. 3, 193 E. Hastings Sr
Vancouver 4, B.C. Phone 685-5288.
Circulation Manager, ERNIE CRIST

Subs .
North Beeon Rate: Canada, $5.00 one year; $2.75 for six months.
uth America and Commonwealth countries, $6.00 one year.

the income of anyone. of these senior

Edctorial Comment...

Stop bombing dikes!

The USA’s deliberate bombing of
Vietnamese dikes and dams—linked to
meteorological warfare—weather tam-
pering—is the Nixon administration’s
monstrous new toy in its undeclared
war on Indochina.

The attempt to annihilate millions of
men, women and children simply for
defending their homes, is no surprise.
Nixon has bombed, burned, poisoned
and tortured them, and lied about it
every step of the way.

He lied too, on June 29, saying re-

ports of U.S. dam and dike bombings.

were inaccurate. French and U.S. news-
men knew he lied, and said so. The
Swedish ambassador to the DRV
agreed. U.N. Secretary General Kurt
Waldheim was privately informed of
the same facts. U.S. actress Jane Fonda,
two weeks in the DRV, saw the de-
struction and said she believes “pro-
foundly that the dikes are being bomb-
ed on purpose.”

On July 26 the U.S. decided to admit
it had bombed irrigation dikes—but ac-
cidentally. Accidentally? With bombs
they boast can hit with an accuracy of
five feet? The desperate men in the
Pentagon are choking ‘on their own
words.

The U.S. has been fooling around
wih meteorological warfare since 1963
but has never perfected it. They expect
to wreak terrible death with it in Viet-
nam. But beyond that, they know
neither the short-term nor long-term ef-
fects.

Dr, Matthew Meselson, professor of
biology at Harvard warns against this
“potential for causing large-scale and
quite possibly uncontrollable and un-
predictable destruction .. especially in
food-deficient areas and in areas sub-
ject to flooding.”

Acid rain, a weapon the CIA-Penta-
gon alliance blesses because it makes
radar, tanks, and trucks inoperative,
also falls on people. Not mentioned are
its effect on them; but the World Peace
Council, urging global denunciation of
meteorological warfare, draws a par-
allel with the contaminated rains of
Hiroshima.

U.S. authorities in Canada were told
this week in a Canadian Peace Congress
protest, their use of meteorological
war, in violation of international law,
is intolerable to Canadians. :

Humanity’s mood is a warning to
Nixon to get his bloody claws out of
Indochina, to quit his barbaric experi-
ments, and to negotiate peace in Paris.

Munro tries trickery

How to perform the miracle of mir-
acles??? Ask John Munro, Minister of
National Health and Welfare. He is the
man who has just announced a pro-

ram “to substantially improve the
quality of life for the pensioners and
and retired people,” including those
over 55 years of age. That sounds like
a splendid idea. But the most interest-
ing part is that he proposes to accom-
plish this without adding one penny to

citizens. No such miracle has ever hap-

pened since biblical times, when the
Good Lord fed the multitudes on a bare
handful of bread and fishes.

But leave it to John Munro to figure
out schemes to save taxpayers money.
If you are a first class citizen you have
of course other means of income and
need not rely on the old age security
pension to keep body and soul together.
But if you are a second class citizen
You must rely entirely upon your pen-
sion to keep alive.

This sef-help program calls for
groups of pensioners or retired people
to undertake community projects, such
as foster grandparent schemes, councel-
ling services for young law breakers,
programs to help school teachers, serv-
ices for small businessmen, to revive
and pass on dying skills such as black-
smithing, etc. But there is one impor-
tant stipulation. Funds will not be pro-
vided for any project intended to be a
profit-making enterprise for the indivi-
dual participant; wages for individual
participants; capital construction or
projects submitted by individuals.

Unlike the Opportunities For Youth
program that pays students up to $90
a week in salaries out of a budget ap-
propriation of $34 million, this New
Horizons for the aged is not a job-mak-
ing scheme. Moreover only a minutely
small group (Munro says about 60,000
and up) out of some two million retired
people can hope to participate in any
way.

This program, announced in the May
8 budget, is a far-cry from the approach
taken towards rich corporate interests
who were given a $500 million private
profit incentive in the form of tax con-
cessions plus outright grants to “stimu-
late” the economy,

Ottawa allots'$10 million for aid-to-
aged who number some two million. It
allots $34 million for Opportunities For
Youth, who make up about one-half of
the population of this country, and
12'2% of those below 24 years of age
are unemployed, But it hands over $500
million to enhance the profits of a few
hundred corporations and the rich.
Need more be said about the class
structure of our sick society where the
poor subsidize the rich, and the power-
ful persecute the weak.

That wild-eyed press

The capitalist press got high again
recently on its own blend of drugs.
What it does is mix some half-facts, a
generous amount of rumor, plenty of
speculation, a shred of truth (well
twisted) and a heavy spicing of garden
manure.

The occasion was the departure of
Soviet military advisers from Egypt
and one half-expected the pyramids to
crumble under the mighty jabs of. edit-
orial pens.

The serious negotiations of countries
like the USSR and Egypt in the tense
Mid-East conditions are bound to raise
problems to be solved—perhaps at some
length. ;

_ But the wild-eyed anti-Soviet press is
in no condition to be trusted with such
realities. The reports in this issue of the
Tribune help to make up for its indis-
cretion. come’
PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, AUGUST 4,,.1972—PAGE 3