“| UNDERSTAND that when a
_ Boom gets old enough it
Slves birth to a Boomerang,”
Wrote a Vancouver, columnist
last week. The phrase “Boom
and Boomerang” aptly describes
we economic situation in Brit-
48h Columbia today.
__Let’s take a look at the Boom
first,
a In: breathless tones, The Fin-
el Post, tipster sheet for big
USiness, recently devoted 15
Pages to ecstatic ‘blurbs about
the profit-making possibilities in
Vig Province. “BIC.: Land Of
Sion—and Billion-Dollar Re-
alities” the banner line pro-
Claimed,
i No doubt about it, there’s an
hdustrial boom. °A look at’ pro-
enon figures ‘tells one part of
Je story: :
FORESTRY PRODUCTION

Car $ million
1938 67.1
1948 363.8
1951 525.0

MINING PRODUCTION
Year $ million
1938 64.5
1948 152.5
1951 165.0
FISHERY PRODUCTION
Year $ million
1988 18.7
1948 58.7
1951 90.0

MANUFACTURING
Ve, PRODUCTION

ear $ million
1938 225.6
ae 985.6
951 1,070.0
yo ARM PRODUCTION _
a : $ million

38 47.8
1948 144.2
1951 155.0

CONSTRUCTION
Ven, CONTRACTS

far $ million
1938 10.7
194g 710.6
195] 385.0

temtet figures support the con-
cf ae that BIC. is in the midst
init © biggest capitalist boom
inep : history. Retail trade has
1939 48ed from $222 million in
Diy to $1,130. million in 1951.
trom 4 consumption ‘has gone up
to 45 958 million kwh, in 1938
£20 million kwh. in 1951.
hopremier Byron I. Johnson,
the 28 for a Liberal sweep in

. “Une 12 provincial election

'

Behind the boom town facade a crisis is developing; growing jobless lines in Vancouver tell a story the ticker tape seeks to hide.

‘

1 i Wall LOEB BB BRE RENEE
CUTUESY MAT W TURNER NT UE a PU ENENE EEE ENENENE eu 1 i

HEUBUB

Boom and ‘Boomerang’

MPT nT OL UD LD Uh LE

on a “good government” record,
stressed ‘the capitalist prosperi-
tty theme in a statement issued
last week as an official govern-
ment advertisement in a special
“Progress Edition” of The Van-
couver Sun.

“Tt is with a great deal of
pleasure that I am able to say
tthat never before at any time
in history was British 'Colum-
tbia’s industrial outlook more
promising, and more encourag-
ing, than it is today,” said the
premier. “So great has been
British Columbia’s development
and expansion in the last few
years that industrialists and
business men consider it one of
the greatest areas of opportuni-
ity on the North American Con-
itinent.

“The entire province is at-
tracting investors from every
part of the world and new en-
terprises are being established
'to give employment to a popu-

lation which has grown more
than. 42 percent in the last 10
years to almost one and a
quarter million people.”

Some of the major industrial
developments are:

@' The $550 million Alcan pro-
ject at ‘Kitimat, 400 miles north

of Vancouver ($160 million to-

ibe spent by mid-1954).

e' The ‘Columbia Cellulose op- ©

erations at Prince Rupert and
in the Arrow Lakes area.

e The $300. million being
spent within the next five years
‘to expand the pulpyand paper
industry.

© 'Cominco’s $62 million ex-
pansion program.

e: An $82 million oil pipeline
from Alberta to Vancouver.

e

So much for the Boom. What
about the Boomerang? :

First, there’s the ugly fact

‘that unemployment is growing

Plenty of salmon in the sea... but the cold war policy freezes markets.

\

By BERT WHYTE

in B.C. Using the rosiest lan-
guage it can find, The Vancou-
ver Sun reports that the prov-
ince’s labor force ‘stands pois-
ed ready to cash in on the in-
dustrial boom.” ‘It \goes on to

admit that “right now employ-—

ment is in that dormant stage
between winter and spring.”

Government figurés show 40,-
824 “unplaced job seekers” in
B.C. as of ‘April 3, an increase of
2,677 above the figure for the
same period last year. Total
labor force in the province
stands at 431,000—which means
that almost one in every 10
workers. is jobless. Add an es-
timated 10,000 unemployed not
registered and the picture looks
even gloomier.

How does it happen that un-
employment is rising in the
midst of a capitalist “‘bodom”
period?

The answer is that British

~ Columbia is on the verge of an

industrial crisis, ‘brought on by
the federal government’s rearm-
ament program and its refusal
to trade with the Soviet Union,
People’s China (a natural mar-
ket for B.C. products) and the
People’s Democracies.

Added to these two factors is
a third, the deliberate policy of
the B.C. government in welcom-
ing an influx of American cap-
ital which is funneled into ex-
tractive industries — a policy

‘ which makes us increasingly de-

pendent on the U.S. market at
a time when the entire USS.
economic system is tied to a
disastrous war program.

As Emil Bjarnason, econom-
ist for the Trade Union Re-
search Bureau, pointed out at
the recent British ‘Columbia
‘Peace ‘Conference, “the liveli-
hood of a large percentage of
our people could be wiped out
‘by even a moderate recession
in one single market, the United
States.”

It’s already happening.

There’s a crisis in the lumber
industry, ‘biggest single contri-
butor to the province’s economy.
North American markets are
rapidly drying up. Trade with
the sterling bloc countries is al-
most at a standstill. Sales this

EE

OTE St Te Te Te) et ee ee ee

year to date are less than half

of what they were last year.
Logging camps are cutting down
operations, many mills are clos-
ed, and thousands of loggers
and mill workers have joined
jobless lines.

There’s a crisis in the fishing
industry. Britain, which bought
36 million worth of canned sal-
mon in 1950 and $6.7 million in
1951, isn’t in the market this
year. One quarter of last year’s
salmon pack (500,000 cases). re-
mains unsold. Federal trade
policies block the industry from
finding new markets.

There’s a crisis in the con-
struction industry, despite the
astounding increase in construc-
tion contracts from $70.6 million
in 1948 to $385 million in 1951.
Key ‘to this riddle is that while
millions of American and Can-
adian dollars are being invested
in construction projects such as
Alcan, there has beén a drastic
decline in construction of homes,
schools and hospitals. This has
resulted in unemployment in the
building industry; while the re-
duced demand for lumber and
wood products has aggravated
the crisis in the woodworking
industry.

e

Despite the capitalist Boom,
B.C.’s fragile economy is begin-
ning to feel the effects of the
‘Boomerang.

Intent on continuing and
expanding Canada’s war pro-
gram, the government and the
employers present a° united
front to the workers and say,
in effect: “War needs come
first. You must take a cut in
wages, tighten your belts, and
work harder.”

This is the pattern seen in
this year’s wage negotiations,
where lumber ‘barons have pro-
posed a 10 percent wage cut
plus increased board rates, and
‘building contractors and other
employers are determined to
“hold the line” on wages.

Workers in British Columbia
have a different answer. Point-
ing to industry’s swollen pro- .
fits, they demand immediate
wage increases to offset increas-
ed living costs, and point out
that markets for B.C. products
could be found if Ottawa were
prepared to cooperate and trade
with all parts of the world.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — MAY 9, 1952 — PAGE 9