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cap fits...

The tollowing is a description of privately owned utilities by John Bauer,
Ph.D., Director of American Public Utilities Bureau and Nathaniel Gold, lawyer
ahd public utilities lecturer at the Coliege of the City of New York. .

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Compiled by the TRADE UNION RESEARCH BUREAU

“... the prevalent type of power systems enormously aecentuates the diverg-
ence between public interest and private profits. While the operating company
or local unit has its own officials, its major policies are determined by the absentee
group whose supremacy rests, not upon real majority investment, but upon
narrow and pyramided equities.

‘While local mamagers are responsible for efficient performance and business
development, one of their primary functions is to cultivate goodwill in their
territory, especially among influential people.

B.C. Power Corporation is a holding company with 16 subsidiaries. Eastern

irterests represented on its board of directors

Trust Lid.; Royal Bank of Canada; Canadian Light and Power Ltd.; Southern
Canada Power Company; Wood, Gundy and Company;
Company; Brazilian Traction Company; Montreal Trust Company.

include: British Shareholders

Nesbitt, Thompson and

Compare A. E. Grauer’s activities re: “Business is Moving to B.C.” campaign;
Support of Vancouver Symphony and sponsorship of Sunday concerts.

“During recent years local managements have been particularly assailed with
discontent over rates, and mostly have handled themselves with great skill of
evasion. Their first duty has been to act as if no general discontent existed,
to register surprise when it is openly voiced, and to blame it upon radical agitators.

“Communistic and Communistictront organizations have opposed all street
car fare increases, regardless of facts, just because they consider such opposition
stirs up dissatisfaction and furthers their own objectives."—A. E. Grauer,

June 15, 1948.

“They meet sanctimoniously with municipal officials and groups of consumers.
ey y : ’ ‘

November 19, 1947—Grauer meets with Vancouver City Council in secret

session to get council’s assent to fare increase.

“They talk profoundly of the conditions of the company and its constant
purpose to serve the public properly at lowest possible cost. They discourse on
‘their feeling of public responsibility and on their keen desire to
possible for community benefit. ‘

do everything 4

“The BCElectric provides numerous free services to make domestic life more
comfortable and to improve the agricultural and industrial strength of the com-
. 2. . The BCElectric enters 1947 with accomplishments and projects to

ry

“If complaint is carried to the state commission, appearances are made and
explanatory statements are elaborately presented.. Informal conferences ensue.
Negotiations between the Commission and the company officials takes place.
Municipal and consumer répresentatives may be admitted. ‘

November 21, 1947—Grauer and senior officers meet with Public Utilities
Commission behind closed doors. On same day, representatives of Civic Reform

Committee are rudely told by PUC to mind their own business. :

“The company officials have the figures and the experts, and present a
defence of existing rates. All this is accompanied by protestation of public interest
and by zealous avowal of public duty. If formal rate cab is ordered,
the. company. elaborately tries to show not only that lower carnot possibly
be granted, but that, in fact, higher rates are necessary to stop the confiscation

of. its property.that.has beer taking place.” ;

“We must have this three for a quarter increase although it is not the full
. (there is) danger of wrecking the development
plan now underway, and difficulty financing it if we have a poor financial year

amount we are entitled to . .

this year.’—A. E. Grauer, Novenmber 19, 1947.

vization of agriculture are not pre-

pared and when a majority of
working peasants are not con-
vinced of the advantages of the
collective way of economy.

The experiences of the All-Un-
ion Communist Party prove that.
cnly on a basis of mass collectivi-
zation of agriculture is the liqui-
dation of the last and most num-
erous exploiting class—“kulaks’—
possible, and that liquidation of
the “kulaks” as a class is an in-
tegral part of the collectivization
of agriculture. ‘ °

To. make successful a liquida-
tion of the “kulaks” as a class

capitalist elements in the coun-
try, it is requested that the party
carry out preliminary work which
tends to restriction of the capi-
talistic elements in the country,

the working class and the peas-
antry under the jeadership of the

ment of socialistic industry. Haste
in this respect can bring only ir-
veparable damage.

sures, carefully prepared and car-
ried out, can the transition from
restriction of the capitalist ele-
ments in the country toward their
liquidation be made. t

_ Attempts of the Yugoslav lead-

‘ty, by making decrees in official
Offices, mean either an adventure

and, therefore, a liquidation of all ©

the consolidation of the union of

- working class and the develop-

~ Only on the basis of these mea-_

ers to solve this problem in a hur- |

already doomed to failure or
boasting and a vast demagogical
declaration.

The Information Bureau main- .

tains that these leftist ‘decrees
and declarations of the Yugoslav
leadership are calculated to mask
their refusal to confess their
faults and to correct them hon-
estly.
i e@
7. With regard to the situa-
tion created in the Commun-

‘ist party of Yugoslavia, and in

an effort to grant the leading
factors of the Yugoslav Commun-
‘ist Party a possibility of finding
a way out of the situation, the
central committee of the All-Union
Communist Party (Bolshevik)
and other central committees of
other brotherly parties have met
to discuss the situation in the Yu-
goslav Communist Party at a
meeting of the Information Bur-
eau under the same formal party
principles which activity of other
Communist parties had been dis-
cussed at the first meeting. But
to various proposals of brother-
ly Communist parties to discuss

the situation in the Yugoslav

Communist party in the Informa-

tion Bureau Yugoslay leaders an-

swered with a refusal.

Trying to avoid the justified
criticism of the brotherly parties
in the Information Bureau, Yugo-
slav leaders made a version about
their not having an “equal rights
position”. It is necessary to say
‘that not a word of this version

was true, It generally is known
that Communist parties, while or-
ganizing the Information Bureau,
went on the incontestable prin-
ciple that every party has to
settle the accounts of its activity
before the Bureau of Information
as well as that every party has the
right to criticize other parties

During the first meeting of the ©

-Communist parties, the Yugoslav
Communist Party made wide use
of this right.

The fact that the Yugoslavs re- _

fused. to settle accounts of their
activity before the Information
Bureau means an action of the
violation of the equal right of
Communist parties and is equal
to a request to create a privileged
position for the Yugoslav Com-
munist Party in the Information
Bureau.
s ‘ e
—With regard to all that has-
* peen stated, the Information
» Bureau agrees with the evaluation
of the situation in the Yugoslav
Communist Party, with the critic-
ism of the faults of the central
.committee of the Communist Par-

_ty of Yugoslavia and with the po-.

litical analysis of these faults as
it was explained in letters of the
central committee of the All-
Union Communist Party (Bolshe-
vik) to the central committee of
the Communist Party of Yugo-
slavia in March-May, 1948. :

The Information Bureau comes
to the unanimous conclusion that
by its anti-party, “anti-Soviet
opinions incompatible with Marx-
ism-Leninism, by its attitude in
its refusal to take part in the ses-

sion of the Information Bureau,

the leaders of the Communist
Party of Yugoslavia put them-

Full text of the Cominform statement

selves against the Communist
parties which are members of the
Information Bureau; they passed
to secession from the united social-
istic front against imperialism
and took the way of betrayal of
the international solidarity of the
working masses, and they took the
way of transition on positions of
nationalism.

- The Information Bureau finds
that as a result of all this, the
central committee of the Com-
munist Party of Yugoslavia puts
itself and the Yugoslav Commun-
ist Party outside the family of
brotherly Communist parties, out-
side the united Communist front
and, therefore, outside the ranks
of the Information Bureau.

~ e ;
0 OE ot AS, She ote
tion Bureau maintains that

the basis of all these faults of the

leadership of the Communist
Party of Yugoslavia is the incon-

testable fact that in its leadership -

in the last five to six months
openly nationalistic elements pre-
vailed that were formerly mask-
ed. It says the leadership of the
.Communist Party of Yugoslavia
parted with the international tra-
ditions of the Yugoslav Commun-
istic Party and took the way of

nationalism. 2

-Yugoslav leaders, badly orient-
ing themselves in the internation-
al situation and frightened by ex-
tortionate threats of the imperi-
alists, think that by a series of
concessions to imperialistic states,
‘they can gain the favor of these
states to make an agreement with
them about the independence of
Yugoslavia and gradually to im-
plant in the Yugoslav people ori-

elements that are truly faithful —

_tionalism and in every way to con-

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JULY 9, 1918—PAGE 5

entation on these states—that is,
orientation on capitalism,

At the same time they silently
go out on. the well-known bour-
geois-nationalistic thesis under
which the “capitalist states repre- —
sent a lesser danger for the inde-
pendence of Yugoslavia than
viet Russia.” \

;

Leading Yugoslav factors pre-
sumably do not understand, or at
least pretend not to understand,
that such a nationalistic concep-
tion can lead to the degeneration
of Yugoslavia into the usual bour-
geois republic and to a loss of
Yugoslav independence to the im-
perialistic countries. Ces

The Information Bureau does
not doubt that in the very heart
of the Communist Party of Yugo-
slavia there are enough sound ~~

to Marxism-Leninism, faithful to —
the international traditions of the
Yugoslav Communist Party and
faithful to the united socialistic —
front. — ee
The aim of these sound ele- _
ments of the Communist Party of _
Yugoslavia is to force their pres-
ent leading factors to confess —
openly and honestly their faults _
nationalism, to return to interna-

solidate the united s So
front against. imperialism; or, if
the present leaders of the Com-
munist Party of Yugoslavia prove —
unable to do this task, to change
them and to raise from below a
new internationalist leadership of —
the Communist Party of Yugo-—
slavia. Pe
The Information Bureau does
not doubt that the Communist
Party can fulfill this task. ee