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HE statistics on the decline

in home-building in recent
Months are themselves a chal-
€nge to the economic theories
that dominate Ottawa. By rais
ing bank loan interest rates still
higher, the government is mak-
Ing it wellnigh impossible for
the average person to build a
Ome, buy a car, or enlarge upon
18 small business or property in

‘any way. Instead of making loan

Capital easily available, the gow

‘/*nment reads the people a hom:
‘Yy about ‘‘saving’’ their money
Sa means of avoiding inflation.

_ Entirely aside from the iron-
lal advice to save in a period
Of soaring prices, such a policy

Pfoduces an immediate chain

homebuilders are now denied :

if
|

Teaction,

First, thousands of potentiak

the possibility of building.

_ Second, a few thousand build-
Ing contractors, supply firms,
and thousands of carpenters,
ate forced out of business and
Sut of work.

_ Third, the housing shortage
almost every Canadian com:
Munity is rendered still more
acute,
Does all this worry Ottawa?
®t so anyone outside the se-

' Claded backrooms of the St. Lau

tent government’s economic ad-
Visers would: notice it. ;
It is only a few weeks

‘Since the B.C.. Truck Loggers

“onvention. here in Vancouver
‘ook a long and wistful look at
€ great potential market in
hina and wondered how lum-
€tmen could get around Otta
4s “‘non-recognition’’ _barri-
fades to get there? Elmore
Philpote, Liberal MP. for Van-
fouver South, gave the boss log:

8ets a bit of good advice in this
eee:

A strangling money policy

Pacific Tribune

Published weekly at
Room 6 — 426 Main Street
Vancouver 4, B.C.
Phone: MArine 5288
Editor — TOM McEWEN
Associate Editor — HAL GRIFFIN
Usiness Manager — RITA WHYTE
Subscription Rates:
One Year: $4.00
Six months: $2.25
Canadian and Commonwealth
Countries (except Australia): $4.00

ne year. Australia, United States
Pr

and all other countries: $5.90 one
year,

Q

regard: ‘‘Get your salesmen into
China fast, recognition or no
recognition.”

The prime problem of British
Columbia's lumber industry is
markets, domestic and foreign.
Until now Ottawa has man-
aged (with U.S. guidance) to
keep Canadian lumber and oth-
er products out of China and
other socialist states. Now, with
high interest rates and “tight

money’ Ottawa aims to. dry up
homebuilding in Canada.

Thus the citizen who wants
to buy or build a home, the
building contractor and the
men who cut the lumber in the
forests and mills to build it with,
are all caught in Ottawa’s ec °
onomic trapnet.

As if to cap this lunacy, Ot
tawa is as busy as the proverbial
beaver, flooding the country
with thousands of Hungarian
refugees and planning to bring
thousands more British immi-
grants to Canada within the

EDITORIAL

Tes" 2 AY o> ed

Now YoU JUST SHOW EVERY BODY THAT WE
was ARE NOT SCARED! : 1

next few months, thereby dem-

onstrating its utter unconcern
for both resident citizens and
immigrants alike.

Unless Ottawa can be con-
vinced, and soon, that such

“‘cures’’ are much more dead-
ly than the ailment they are pre-
sumed to ‘‘cure,’ homeless and
jobless people will be the by-
product of our much publicized
“1957 boom.”’

ie NOTHING else touching our

daily lives is the hand of mon-
opoly so apparent as in the cars
we drive — whether we can af-
ford to or not.

Ford’s attempts to overhaul
General Motors’ lead, Chrysler’s
struggle to regain a larger share
of the market, are reflected on
every street of every community
in North America where owners
argue about the relative merits
of their cars and accept without
question the’ fact that most. of
them drive one of the three main
makes.

The names and crests on the
ears carry the auto industry over
its brief 60 years, and it is a
history of repeated mergers, of
one great holding added to an-
other until now the Big Three
have absorbed nearly all their
one-time competitors. ;

In the North American market
the Big Three are supreme, ser-
iously challenged by neither the
two remaining ‘small’. Ameri-
can manufacturers, American
Motors (Hudson-Nash) and Stu-

debaker-Packard, nor their main
foreign competitors in North
America, British Motor Corpor-
ation (Austin-Morris) and Volks-
wagen.

On a world scale, it is the Big
Nine — General Motors, Ford,
and Chrysler in the U.S., Volks-
wagen in West Germany, British
Motor Corporation in Britain, Fiat
in Italy, Renault, Citreon and
Simca in France. With the ad-
dition of Ford of Britain, of
Vauxhall of Britain and Opel
of West Germany, both of which
are controlled by General Mo-
tors, these giant corporations
produce 80 percent of the world’s
motor vehicles — 10,700,000 in
1955.

What this means is ably pre-
sented in a survey, Today’s Prob-
lems in the Automobile Industry,
publishéd by the metal and en-
gineering unions affiliated to the
World Federation of Trade Un-
ions.

5° 3 Yt st

The survey points out that the
auto industry employs upwards
of two and a half million work-
ers in the principal industrial
countries and U.S., which - pro-
duces 68 percent of the world’s
output, it has become a barome-
ter of the country’s economic
weather.

The socialist countries, as yet,
are still a minor factor in the
world auto market. In 1955, the

. Soviet Union produced only 80,-

000.cars as compared to 377,665
produced in Canada, and Czecho-
slovakia 12,530. Only in commer-

cial vehicles and tractors, their
greatest immediate need, do the
socialist countries begin to ap-
proach the capitalist countries in
output. :

The struggle between the mon- |
opolies is confined to a relatively
few countries, for there is a wide
range between the US. figure of
one car for every 2.6 of popula-
tion and the Greek figure of one
car for every 484 of population.
But within the countries that of-
fer the greatest market the
struggle is intense and the prof-
its enormous — General Motors
with 143 plants throughout the
world, made $1,189 million profit
in 1955,

To maintain and increase prof-
i‘s like these all the monopolies
are investing heavily in automa-
tion. Already in Britain thous-
ands of workers have received
the dismissal slips which con-
front them personally with the
question of whether automation
is io mean higher living stan-
dards-for the workers or higher
profits for the employers.

Noting the “formidable con-
centraiion in the hands of a few
companies of nearly the whole
world production,” the survey
conc_udes that their aitempts to
deprive their workers of the
benefits of automation can be
countered only by concerted ac-
tion of the unions in the coun-
tries most affected.

And upon the outcome of that
struggle may well depend the
ability of the rest of us to con-
tinue driving a car at all.

FEBRUARY 15, 1957 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 7