- Stowers

Review

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

EDITORIAL PAGE

Comment

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—_.

; Tom
McEwen

NortH or South, the Okanagan Valley
5 in British Columbia is a veritable
Garden of Eden.” . Yet despite this
‘fowning glory of Nature, many of the
Adams and Eves who live and toil there
ave a very pressing apple problem on
their minds: what the 1954 fruit crop
Will be, and will they get enough out of

i to keep going?
Generally speaking, government esti- .

ates and statistics on the current fruit
5 are very cheerful and optimistic,
“Sut to a very large number of fruit
» not too convincing.»
From Armstrong to Osoyoos the num-
teh: of fruit farmers who don’t know
the their 1954 fruit crop wijl bring
the 25 Very considerable. The effects of
aS heavy frosts of four years ago is still
Vlous in gnany orchards. In many

_ {Tehards also the early frost of this year

sy 8 already: caused a big percentage of

“hare 2PPle crop to fall to the ground

lalfgrown, A long period of wet and

Cloudy Weather has brought on a heavy

ae of blackleaf, scab and other apple
Wing hazards to bedevil the farmer.
tent the big packers are “optimistic.”
son © scheme of things there is no rea-
Why they shouldn’t be. “We always
he a crop in this country,” one pack-
et booster informed me with the
the dent air of a man well versed in
+e Cnopoly art of farming the farmers.
=f : lad also opined that those people
an eet about depressions were the
Cause of depressions!

t may be recalled that for the past
oi years many of our “statesmen,”
Nomists,” “experts” and what have

Osopre’ Wallowed in this kind of phil-
Vane Y Herbert Hoover, the great

; engineer” iali in this
king ee neer” specialized

hinki ipted to
Dut Anes nking when he attemp

ican w

ie oO
Perity”
Selling

en million unemployed Am-
tkers back on the road to “pros-
during the Hungry Thirties —
apples! ;
the ae € at the Okanagan centres from
tradictj Non the street” angle the con
bein” & seeming prosperity and well-
amon there is a deep-going uncertainty
Bare, be People.
Dre ee
oes driving late model cars (only
inatignc” by the number of multi-denom-
halls) “¢ churches, missions and evangel
“Seago . ane large number of itinerent
Dloye nal” unemployed, and semi-unem-
be in ye eers: and those who hope to
Ih th € orchard harvest soon.
b Sine € key centres of the Okanagan
ing is nd Is ‘quiet and much of the buy-
the ¢ On the cuff,” chargeable against
consia, Trent crop income, which is. still
and Bee less certain than, “death
many oe to its salubrious climate and its
®XPang ©auty spots a new industry has
Ng th €d rapidly in the Okanagan dur-
“Motel, last decade; that of the wayside

of ae the effects of Yankee dumping
Proyj and vegetables in B.C. is already
Okanag Somewhat disastrous to the
*ith a an economy, the Yankee tourist
8S he ugh to spend is not so evident
fough Used to be, and the volume of
@ left behind is not sufficient to
the 9 Msate for the Yankee dumping in
Verall economy.
tours Cure for this is not more Yankee
in pa? but a more stabilized economy
{for ; Whereby our own people could
3 “auty ® enjoy the glorious climate and
Notelg> the Okanagan, and keep its
iang ©. Nd: campsites full — of Cana-

Ons are startling to say the least.

Ced against the large number of -

forecast th

“WE GIVE YOU A CHOICE!
WHICH IS THE ONE
YoU DO NOT WANT ?*

Te B.C. Electric straphangers

have won round two in their
battle against another fare increase
the Public Utilities Commission
has bowed to the storm of pro
test against the hasty: calling of
the public hearings and has now
scheduled them for the end of the
first week in August.

This follows on the - heels of
another victory for public action
that has lined up city and munr
cipal councils, trade “unions ae
people’s organizations in a soli
front against the companys de-
mands.

The opposition to the latest ex’ .

Straphangers win round —

actions of the power and transit
monopoly can win a complete
triumph. Crucial to the campaign
now is the rolling up of the great-
est possible expression of public

support for the opponents of the ~

boost.

Canvassers for Effie Jones are
now circulating her petition
against a fare increase throughout
Greater Vancouver and a similar
petition is being sponsored by an
independent’ group in Victoria.
These petitions deserve the sup
port of every citizen. Sign one and
get your neighbors and fellow
workers to sign.

Truce in Indochina -

; all the blustering and
Oe iting of John Foster
Dulles and the U.S. Senate have
been able to prevent the conclu
sion of a ceasefire in Indochina.
The marching and counter-march-
ing of the ‘atom generals, be-
sides showing the utter confusion
and bankruptcy of their policy,
serves only to demonstrate ¢ at
the U.S. doesn’t want peace.
The North American press has
taken a professionally pessimistic
view of the negotiations. Every
difference of opinion has a
magnified into a deadlock. z
flood of inspired storjes from the

: eals of the press have
pain) e failure of the talks.

In spite of all this, the negotia-
tions between the French Premier
and the Russian Foreign Minister
took place in a friendly atmos
phere. :

The people of the world have
won a big victory—the biggest
since the cessation of hostilities in
Korea. Another one of those
sparks that could be fanned into
the flames of a world war has
been stamped out.

There must now be a further
effort: to settle the outstanding
problems of Southeast Asia .on a_
basis that will recognize the right
of the people of that area to run
their affairs without interference:
from relics of the colonial days.

Hal
Griffin

Ones K. NESBITT, who has a far

better grasp of British Columbia’s
history than most of his colleagues in

_ the press gallery at Victoria, has been

writing a series of biographical sketches
on the premiers of this province. With
his knowledge of our history it is not
surprising that he should have devoted
a great deal of space to Amor De
Cosmos, the second premier of B.C. and
by virtue of his having led the popular

struggle, the father of British Columbia’s
entry into Confederation. What is sur-

' ,prising is that Nesbitt, having quoted

extensively from De Cosmos’ writings
and the columns of his newspapers, the
Colonist and the Standard, should have
drawn this conclusion: :

“The Liberals should claim De Cos-
mos as their father in B.C. He said he
was thoroughly Liberal. But then, the
Communists now claim him as B.C,’s first
Communist. So, even in death De Cos-
mos’ impact is still felt.”

The statement that the Communists
claim Amor De Cosmos as the province’s
first Communist, of course, is a-distor-
tion. Communists state only what is
borne out by the historical facts, that
De Cosmos led the struggle for respon-
sible government against the colonial
autocracy of Governor James Douglas
and, when that struggle merged with a
move for union with Canada, carried it
forward to bring British Columbia into
Confederation. :

De Cosmos, like Sir John A, MacDon-
old, who was once ‘his running mate in
a Victoria election ,jhad a vision of Can-
ada as a great country stretching from
séa to sea. As I wrote in an article in
1952:

“De Cosmos expressed his times, but
with a vision that exceeded them.”

One has only to read his comments
on the Paris Commune of 1870 to ap-
preciate this.

Y uy eo

But this only emphasizes why the

Liberals do not try to claim De Cosmos
as the father of Liberialism in B.C. They
cannot. It only emphasizes that what
masquerades as Liberalism in the nine-
teen-fifties is a far cry from the Liber-
alism of the eighteen-seventies, when
the ruling class of our country was still
prepared to concede the very liberties
it suppresses today. : :

“. , The day will come when the
principle of the ill-fated rebellion of
Paris will be extolled to the skies.”

This is what De Cosmos wrote about
the Paris Commune in the Standard of
1871.

Can you imagine Prime Minister Louis ©

St. Laurent, as the national leader of
the Liberal party, or any other leading
Liberal, making such a statement about
the Chinese Revolution?

And there, of course, is the measure
of the road Liberaliem has taken, the
reason that the Liberals, the men who
‘are selling the independence of our
colintry to the United States, cannot
claim De Cosmos, the man who stated in
his last speech in the House of Com-
mons, on April 21, 1882:

*. ... I see no reason why the people
of Canada should not look forward to
Canada becoming a sovereign and inde-
pendent state... . I was born a British
colonist, but I do not wish to die a tad-

. pole British colonist. I do not wish to

die without having all the rights, privi-
leges and immunities of the citizen of
a nation.”

Today the Liberals preserve the form,
the illusion, but they are destroying the
content of the very things for which
De Cosmos fought.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JULY 23, 1954 — PAGE 5