Review

TOM McEWEN, Editor — HAL GRIFFIN, Associa te Editor — RITA WHYTE, Business Manager.

EDITORIAL PAGE

Published weekly by the Tribune Publishing Company Ltd. at Room 6, 426 Main Street, Vancouver’ 4, B.C. — MArine 5288

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Tom
McEwen

T= Way I figure it,” one of our older
tay Teaders remarked the other day,
“€ Monopolies have you by the neck

Store. you're born and after you're
dead.”

His’ observati ;

th ‘ vations were prompted by

bat Public Utilities Commission’s recent

ae too original discovery of the big
S being made by the cemetery

try :
Sts in and around Vancouver.

~very parent knows that children

mreante the world with a price tag

Dita €d in the form of medical and hos--
Pick Costs. Citizenship Minister Jack

. Saha boasts that nothing is better
fox as Canadian baby, a remark
he has. properly been taken

to ‘
th task, but his government does nothing

ances so": increasing family _allow-
or enabling pregnant women to

mon’. tom the day you're born, the
Maric y you're born,
hee have you by the neck, in
educate Ssle of your parents to raise and
Ugg] you and afterward, in your own
Maintain eat, keep yourself clothed,
your Bike roof over your head and, in
Children,’ to raise and educate your

Aue
a as the old worker reminded us,

Poung ect, this ‘busin f gettin,
aro e usiness of getting
enabiey mee fares and ‘high rates have

a pli 'e BC. Electric, with the aid
langes; cat PUC, to become one of the

ow Monopolies in the country.
Comes Hag same PUC suddenly be-

e defender of the right of man

eting aay funeral, belatedly discov-
— Cemete. al we are being rooked by the

Sang tok trusts after the rest of the

Cked us. clean while we lived.

] ; % 5°3
ed et the Vancouver Herald was moy-
Reeds 4. ment on the matter. “All one
Drofit do to appreciate the fantastic
into coe ibilities in dividing acreage
tithmetie TY Plots is to do a little
mh acres os multiplying the number
atre a:
it vreot then by the price of the pot,”
of #' Simple arithmetic exposes one

for Who Wwe ghoulish of all monopolies,

Of 3 nts to argue about the cost —

duty to a loved one? So the
Stieg >, Sh0uls cash in on human
living Foking the pockets of dead and
of sym € and wearing a cynical mask
Ati thy while doing so.
B ittle
amwland
. ron’, Bur

Tofita :
y mu business. They dug up new-

™ediogy , orPSes and sold them to the
Comeiar profession for a fixed price. The
Cess. ‘rusts have reversed the pro-
Sore p,q 9 Temand their fixed price be-
This qo(@24 can be buried.
deaq g,ccing of the living to bury the
em et end with a high-priced
Tb TY plot. These modern grave
Ston» aba rake in a large “commis-
Which + ‘he tombstone business, a fact
an aS indicate much more than
ee stry . interest in design, quality
°f ston Cure of these memorial pieces
. Now oe bronze.
'Q the at the ghoulish business is out
take oF ti don’t let us make the mis-
oly. faving it in the hands of a
Tidden PUC for redress. No-
sy Needeg than government intervention
7aCket) oS end this despicable profit

On pigs POT Yorick” — they fattened

fate Swea * .
atten, on see oe he lived, now they

oem ete;

Over a gentury ago in Merrie
‘WO enterprising gentlemen

Ye

Dy the number of plots per —

ke and Hare began a very.

Vancouver must remain as

°

W HEN the Westcoast Trans
mission Company received
its permit to construct a natural
gas pipeline from the Peace River
to the Coast, Vancouver was the
agreed. terminus. This week the
company is appealing to the Board
of Transport Commissioners to
alter the terms of its permit — to
have the terminus switched to
Huntingdon on the U.S. border
south of Abbotsford, instead of
direct to Vancouver as originally
agreed.

Behind this proposed switch a -
gigantic public steal is being plan’

ned. Westcoast Transmission
Company is little more than a

‘front for powerful Yankee fuel

and hydro trusts which want to
get control of our natural gas re-
sources. And in B.C. the B.C. Elec:
tric acts as a Canadian partner of
the U.S. monopolists, seeking to

extend its own monopoly to in-

clude the distribution of natural
gas to B.C. consumers. The B.C.
Electric is already assuming the
role of B.C. agent of the US.
monopolies, hoping to be endowed
with the sole right to sell B.C.

consumers their own natural gas

on its terms.

While the Westcoast Transmis-
sion Company is applying to have
the terminus switched to Hunting:
don, the B.C. Electric is. simul
taneously applying to the discredit
ed Public Utilities Commission for
permission to build its own feeder

pipeline from Huntingdon to Van-

« * ‘| not ay
eek El

by extremist elements...”

“Tell him to keep out of thisand
not torefer to the US. Mission like that!"
sae

gas pipeline terminus

couver, through which it hopes ‘to
service (read rook) all the Fraser
Valley, the Lower Mainland and
Greater Vancouver on its own
monopoly terms.

Every municipal council in the

Fraser Valley with one exception
has opposed any change in the or-
iginal main pipeline terminus, and
some have expressed their ap
proval and support of publicly-

_ owned natural gas services.

*

Public pressure must be intensi-
fied to block this gigantic monop-
oly steal, first, by urging upon the
Board of Transport, Commission-
ers that the original terminus in
Westcoast Transmission’s permit
be adhered to; and second, that no
permits, franchises or other con-
cessions relative to the distribution
of natural gas in British Columbia
be given to the B.C, Electric.

These two conditions enforced
now by mass public opinion will

mean a saving of millions of dol-

lars to the people of B.C. in the

distribution and use of their own .

natural gas. It is this vast wealth
the B.C. Electric seeks to grab
while Westcoast Transmission
presents its terminus application
to enable the modern Yankee free-
booters to make off with, the larger
part of a great Canadian asset.

The public’s demand should be:

No change in the main gas line
terminus! No further PUC hand-
outs to the B.C. Electric!

aed

French Farce — Viet Nam Tragedy

Hal
(® Griffin

N a series of articles he has been writ-

ing for the London Daily Worker
under the heading, “Pioneers of the
People’s Press,”’ E. P. Thompson tells
the story of William Morris, the English
socialist poet and writer who edited
The Commonweal in London from 1885
to 1890.

“No task was too humble for Morris,”
he notes. “Passers-by at Hammersmith
Bridge or Hyde Park would see the
famous man quietly taking round the
hat for a collection or selling the paper
among the audience before taking his
turn on the soap box.” #

I was reminded of this the other day
when a little old lady walked into the
office, took a well-worn black leather
purse from a pocket in her skirt and
drew out a folded two-dollar bill. She
laid it on the counter, carefully smooth-
ing it with her thin trembling hands.

“I can’t give very much,” she said,
almost apologetically. “I just get the
pension. But I feel I must give some-

_ thing.”

Then she explained. As a girl in
Nanaimo she used to attend socialist
meetings with her father, who was a

« strong. supporter of the old Socialist

Party of Canada. The speaker at one
of these meetings was E. T. Kingsley,
then editor of the Western Clarion. She
remembers him as a big, broad-should-
ered man with bushy black hair. “And
a fine speaker, too,” she added.

But what impressed,her most was the
way the audience responded when Kings-
ley went around taking subscriptions »
and organizing the sale of the paper.

“Tt was their paper,” she said. “They
took him aside and told him what they
liked and what they didn’t like and
what they thought he should put in.
Most of them were miners like my
father and they got very little wages, .
you have no idea how little. But near-
ly everyone gave something or promised
to get new readers for the paper.”

She took her receipt, folded it neat-
ly and tucked it in her purse.

“T know it doesn’t seem like much,”
she said again, “but it’s all the little
contributions that ve a paper going.”

it 50

It’s 70 years since the first labor paper
was founded in British Columbia — the
Industrial News, published by the
Knights of Labor and edited by J. M.
Duval, made its appearance in Victoria
in same year William Morris and
the Socialist League began publishing
The Commonweal in London.

In those 70 years many labor papers
have come and gone; Not one of these
Papers ever ceased publication because
its readers failed it. They died only
when their policies failed their readers
or when the movements that gave them
life disintegrated or were smashed.

All of them shared that common
tradition which links the Western Clar-
ion with the Pacific Tribune. Their
readers supported them. with donations,
collected subscriptions for them and, if
they ceased publication, helped to bring
new papers into being to voice their
needs.

Some, like the late Harry Asson, walk-
ed miles every week to deliver their —
Papers. Others, like Arthur Wilbee,
stood on street corners day in and day
out. They did it ibecause they knew,
as William Morris knew, that this was
no humble task but the essential duty
which makes a labor paper a living force
—that of getting it into the hands of
the people.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — MAY 20, 1955 — PAGE 5