reat Giveaways
in B.C.'s History

“|. Only in a province so richly endowed could there be
anything left to give away .. .”’Says Hal Griffin in this article.

VEN before British Colum-
E bia was formally proclaim-
ed a colony, governments were
giving away its resources. To
day, almost 90 years after en-
the
still

giving them away, using the

into . Confederation,

try

Bennett government is

same specious claim of devel-

opment with which the
Wil-
liam Smithe justified itself in

1

giveaway government of

Q2Q22
O00.

Only in a province so rich-
endowed could there be
left to give away,

records of successive
governments read more like
of buccaneers
guardians of the people’s her-
itage. The rich coal fields of
Vancouver Island, on
the colony’s early
was built, have been
dered and abandoned.
great forest stands
been decimated, the
despoiled. And since there has
always been more ready pro-
fit in shipping raw or semi-
processed. products. than
creating a manufacturing in-
dustry at home, the primary
industries have alternately
flourished or languished,
their workers haunted by lay-
offs and unemployment.

ly
anything
for the

those

The
have

This is the legacy of give-
aways, which in the early
days founded fortunes for cor-
rupt politicians and their sup-
porters and in our own times
has handed the people’s re-
sources to the
more and more
owned or controlled.

Let’s look at the record —
at.the peaks which reveal “a
mountain range of undiscov-
ered and well developed ras-
cality,” as_ Sir

ed the CPR scandal.
e

In 1849 the British govern-
ment gave the whole of Van-
couver Island, “‘with. royal-
ties of its seas, and all mines
belonging to it,’ to the Hud-
son’s Bay. Company. The com-
pany’s concern was to secure
the huge profits of its fur-
trading empire on. the North
Pacific coast. But when the
Fraser River gold rush of
1858 ushered in changes

first |

| schemed

than |

which |}
economy |
plun- |

fisheries |

Richard Cart- |
wright, speaking in the House |
of Commons in 1890, describ- |

which forced it to relinquish ,
500, the |

te)

the grant for £57,
company was assured new
profits from the thousands of
acres of lands it retained.
But struggle for

until the

responsible government, entry |

into Confederation and full-
filment of its terms was com-
pleted, the stage was not fully
set for giveaways on the scale

envisioned by those who came ,

to the new _ province
to seize its

, for themselves.

In the three years 1883-86,
the Smithe government was
accused of having given away
3,500,000 acres in the Peace
River district, 750,000 acres
in the Kootenays and 6,000
acres to the CPR for the rail-
way extension to Vancouver.

itn ac Sl aa ata aS,

Its biggest giveaway how-
ever, was to Robert Duns-
muir, who obtained a $75,000
federal cash grant and 1,900,-

to build 78 miles of railroad
from Esquimal to Nanaimo.

in |

By this giveaway the Duns-
muir family acquired virtu-
ally all the coal lands on Van-
couver Island, some 200
square miles in all and from
|the labor and misery of men
| who worked — and frequent-
ly died — in what were held
to be among the most danger-
ous mines in the world, the
Dunsmuir family built a for-
tune variously estimated up to
$30 million.

monopolies, |
of them U.S. ;

; Inthe. 1,900,000-acre land
|} grant, Robert Dunsmuir had

also obtained some of the fin-

est timber stands in the prov-
| ince, and after 1911, when his
son James sold the Dunsmuir
coal and rail holdings to Mac-
Kenzie and Mann, the rail-
road promoters, for $8,000,-
|000, thé CPR acquired both
| the E & N Railway and these
| lands.

! Still .another. fortune was
| extracted from ‘the alienated
public domain, for over the

years. the CPR sold the lands.

|to logging companies, relying
jon the.exemption allowed by
' the -original: charter. to evade
| payment of taxes running into

and | :
wealth | operation I
| timately by either the CPR or

| promotional stage. Others be-
| gan
| bankrupt. With the exception

| millions of dollars —_a_ stand |

| Supreme Court in 1947.

' e

in which it.was upheld by. the |

The E & N was only @ne of |
charters | i

some 280 railway
granted by provincial govern-
ments over a 40-year period |
beginning in the eighties as |
promoters and politicians
scrambled to share ih the}
spoils of ‘development’ ;-Many
of these railroads failed*in th

construction andi went

|
|
of the Pacific Great Eastern, |
those that actually got into |
were absorbed ul-

CNR systems. By the time the
railroad boom ended; lavish
cash subsidies had appkeciably
increased the provincial debt
and land grants had shorn the
public domain of some of its

choicest lands. i

}

At the same time, the land
speculators were also carving
up the remaining lands. The
scandal reached such propor-
tions that in 1915 the Minis-

terial Union of the Lower

|000-acre provincial land grant | fusions Pup ees 2 Dao

phlet, The Crisis in British
Columbia, charging -that 90
percent of available; agricul-
tural lands had been alienated
and that “the great-bulk of

THE AUTHOR ofthis
article, HAL GRIFFIN, is
a well-known writer of
British Columbia “labor'
and political history. His
latest book “British Co-
lumbia: The People’s
Early Story,” is a must
for those who want to be
well informed in the
struggle against B.C.’s
despoilers. The book sells
for $1.00 and can be
bought at the Pacific
Tribune office or the
People’s Co-op Bookstore.

the land already taken up has
passed into the hands of
greedy speculators, to the ser-
ious injury of the country’s
development and the robbery
of: the honest settler.” Be-
tween them, the pamphlet
claimed, 43 concerns or indiv-
iduals had acquired more than
2,000,000 acres with the con-
nivance of cabinet ministers.

The pamphlet rocked the
McBride-Bowser Conservative
government, whose giveaways
were estimated to have total-
led some 8,000,000 acres of
timber lands, 6,000,000 acres
of agricultural lands and
1,300,000 acres of coal lands.
The Pacific Great Eastern
scandal, perhaps the most
notorious of all giveaways un-
til recent years, completed its
fall in the 1916 provincial
election,

When a select committee
reported on the PGE to the
new legislature, the irregular-
ities covered pages—no prop-
er supervision had been exer-
cised by the* government al-
though it had guaranteed com-
pany bonds, the contract be-
tween the company and _ its
contractors was improper and
excessive, the contractors had
been overpaid $5,700,000 and
had defaulted on interest pay-
ments of more than $1,000,-
000; all this on a bankrupt
and uncompleted railroad re-
ceiving a provincial cash sub-
sidy of $42,000 a mile for 480
miles in addition to townsite

and. other land grants. ‘The
committee also found that
PGE vice-president D’Arcy

Tate had given funds to the
Conservative Party.

Attorney - General W. J.
Bowser, alleged to have viol-
ated provincial~ statutes in
payments made to contractors,
refused to answer the commit-
tee’s questions about cam-
paign funds. PGE secretary-
treasurer R. D. Thomas was
brought to the bar of the
House and ordered into cus-
tody when he too, refused to
answer questions. And the

committee complained of the

December 2, 1960—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page

“precipitate departure” to the
United States of certain pel
sons it wanted to question.

But no one was formally
charged. The only _ actiob
taken was to detain Thomas

for 27 days,:after which the
legislature approved a motiol |

to discharge him from cus |
tody. A motion to bring Bow |
ser to the bar of the House
died in debate. The inference
was strong that the Liberals,
having exploited the issue t
defeat and. utterly. discredit
the Conservatives, were nob
anxious to press it further be" |
cause it involved too many if
high places, Liberals as well}
as. Conservatives. |
In the giveaways of our ow?
times natural gas, oil and hy}
dro resources have replaced
coal, but lands, timber and |.
railroad construction stil!
form the essential pattern of

the Wenner-Gren giveaway i!|
the Rocky Mountain Trench:

What John Oliver, later 1
become Liberal premier, said
in condemnation of the Bow
ser government in 1916 hold
true of every governme?
from William Smithe to W. 4}
C. Bennett, including Oliver'}
own regime: “We have th
greatest natural resources p0*
sible, we have the greates!
coal fields on the face of th!
earth, and 20 million acres %
agricultural and timber lands
yet we have unemploymen!
poverty, bankruptcy and_ sta!)
vation.”

a pen eg et et > Lee er a ee

Whether by Conservative}
Liberal or Social Credit gov}
ernments. giveaways are thé
means through which the pal}
ties of big business enric
their big business supporte
at the people’s expense aj
perpetuate themselves i
power. The century-old plu!)
dering of the people’s resoul
ces can be halted only by
united people’s moveme?
dedicated to regaining contro}
of our stolen heritage and ad

ministering it for the people’ a
benefit. aw
qt