Us
Ole
Monopo ies

REFINING PRocEss

NEWS ITEM: Gulf Oil of Canada Ltd., announced last week it more
than doubled its earnings in the first quarter of 1974 compared to a
year ago. It was the second major oil company in Canada to report.a
doubling of profits. Canadian oil companies are following the same
pattern of huge profits as their parent companies in the U.S.

vild a

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

Mines Minister Leo Nimsick’s
announcement that the provincial
government is considering the
establishment of a copper smélter
in B.C. is encouraging. It’s a step
long overdue. It would be even
more encouraging -if the mines
minister would be more precise
and announce that the government
intends to build a copper smelter.
After all, that is exactly what the
NDP promised during the election
campaign that led to its victory a
little less than two years ago.

And NDP government will, said
the election manifesto of the party,
“establish a publicly-owned copper
smelter financed out of copper
royalties.”

As the mines minister explained
to the legislature recently, ex-
tracting copper from the earth and
shipping it out of the province
(almost all of it goes to Japan),
doesn’t create many jobs. And the
copper is non-renewable, it won’t
last forever. :

In 1938, copper mining employed
about 10,000 workers. In 1973 this
went up to 14,600, but in the
meantime production increased:
ten times over! a

A copper smelter in the province
would cause a mushroom like

pu

growth of industry and create five
to ten times as many jobs in the
industry as there are today. All of
B.C. would benefit, not least of all
Vancouver.”

The way to jobs and a humming
economy in B.C. is through the
establishment of secondary in-
dustries to process our raw
materials at home. Secondary and
manufacturing industries are
labor-intensive industries; the
extraction of raw materials and
shipping them away in their raw
form is not.

The establishment of secondary
industries is something I have long
advocated. So has the trade union
movement of this province, and the
NDP itself acknowledged this
when in its election program it
stated:

“We must develop our own
resources. and establish the
secondary industries to process
and manufacture them right here
in B.C.”

A steel industry is also needed in
B.C. and there is no need for our
premier to beg the Japanese
multinational corporations to build
one here for us. We can do it our-
selves: We have the coal and the
iron ore. As a matter of fact it is
our coal, (from the Crow’s Nest

owned
copper smelter in B.C.”

Pass), and our iron ore, oe
Vancouver Island), that ‘a
Japanese are using right noW =
their steel industry. And ee
buy back steel from them at ‘i
tastically high prices made f
our own raw materials! wit
This doesn’t make econd al
sense. The NDP governmé
should take steps now to also P=
a steel industry. We have a ne
shortage of steel now and i
country is opened up, as ee
by the government, we will nes
more than ever, The soonel ™
start on its the better. : and
Financing a copper smeltet A
a steel industry should not pre “ie
too great a problem. There isi?
hundre ds of millions of dollar :
pension funds in the proving
people of B.C. would be haPP. ¥
am sure, to make their ee
available to the government 10?
establishment of secondary
dustries. Better the gover ats
should pay normal interest ©
on loans from the people an?
credit unions than excessiVé
terest rates to banks. adi
So, let’s get on with puildiné
those secondary industries:

Cement monopoly case appealed —

The case of the B.C. cement
companies who were fined recently
under the combines act for
engaging in monopoly practices is
not yet a closed book. This became
evident in mid-April when both the
federal government and the
companies involved launched
appeals in the B.C. Court of Appeal
against the earlier decision.

The decision of Mr. Justice
Harry McKay fining Ocean Con-
struction Supplies Ltd., Lafarge,
Metro Concrete Ltd., and Butler
Brothers of Victoria has come
under considerable public
criticism for not being severe
enough.

The PT has been one of the
voices calling for stronger action
against companies engaged in
monopoly praetices. The PT has

See

TOM

urged that names be named and
charges laid under the combines
act against individuals accused,
with maximum fines imposed on
those found guilty. The present
combines act. provides for a
maximum two-year sentence.

In its appeal the federal
government claims that the fines
were too light, contend they should
have been higher in view of all the
circumstances of the case, the
duration of the offence, the
geographic extent of the combine,
the degree of influence and par-
ticipation by the firms and their
share of the ready mix concrete
market in Greater Vancouver and
the Lower Mainland.

It contends that the ready-mix
business in B.C. during the period

of. the combine was of a-
“monopolistic nature’’. The appeal
filed in Vancouver for the attorney-
general of Canada by Norman
Mullins claims that the penalties
are too light in relation to the size,
assets and earnings of the firms,
and are not sufficient to deter
“other firms of similar size who
might now be involved or later be
involved”’ in activities illegal
under the combines act.

The government’s appeal also
claims the terms of Mr. Justice
Harry McKay’s order prohibiting
the companies from further of.
fences similar to those brought
before him are too narrow and

contends that more restrictions
should be imposed. :

Lawyers for the companies filed

Square, Art, and talk to some old timers. I want a
background story.”

The trouble was that I was tired. I
the streets for hours. The sun was goi

had been tramping
ng down in the west.

an appeal at the same time
charging that the fines imposed on

them are “grossly excessive’, and
that the trial judge did not take into
consideration evidence that the
public did not suffer as a result of
the combine, and further _ that
concrete prices would not have
been less even if there were no
combine practices in effect. They
further contend their action was
aimed at preventing ‘‘suicidal
competition’”’. The companies’
appeal against the fines and
against the prohibition order made
against them.

The appeals will undoubtedly
attract national attention, par-
ticularly at this time when the

combines act is up for change;

before parliament.

smash the damned
white unite.’’

ee at ato
“Who's streaking? | yust cal!t 4

Clothes at today's prices” Q

open shop system when b
i

His talk turned to racism. - onting iti ue
“That’s the curse of our land. I began fightin wae?

McEWEN

ay Day of the working class comes again and the long

march of millions of toilers passes in review; a march
sustained by countless sacrifices and dreams, and
sustained by a robust and growing socialist world.

“T dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night
Alive as you and me;

Says I, but Joe you’re ten years dead, >

I never died, says he, I never died says he.””

That surely is no dream. You see that lanky Swede
heading up those marching platoons of hard-rock miners,
coal miners, construction workers, the men and women
who dig the vast riches from the bowels of the Earth, from
the fields and mountain slopes, that’s Joe Hill. And there
are many who march beside him. The Scotsboro Boys,
Tom Mooney, Sacco and Vanzetti, Ethel and Julius
Rosenberg, Bill Davis of Nova Scotia, Ginger Goodwin of
B.C. Their names are legion — and immortal until that
May Day march reaches its rendezvous with history!

Back in 1968 the New York Daily World recorded a May
Day dream by Art Shields, one of its top reporters. A
beautiful dream entitled ““My Name is Albert Parsons’’. It
is symbolic of many May Days, those past, and those still
to come until the brotherhood of man and universal peace
shall end these dark ages of monopoly exploitation, war
and pillage. Following is Art’s dream:

~*~

“‘We’re demonstrating in Union Square at 5:30 on May ’
Day,”’ my editor told me. ‘Will. you run down to the —

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, MAY 3, 1974—PAGE 2

It was a warm, sultry evening. When I reached the Square
the temptation to rest on a bench was too strong to resist.
And I don’t know how much time passed before a hand
touched my shoulder anda smiling man stood before me.

He seemed to be 38 or 40 — perhaps a little more. He
wore an old-fashioned derby, and his suit might have
come out of the village store of my boyhood. #

“My name is Albert Parsons,”’ a Southern voice said.

“Albert Parsons!”” The name rang a bell. “Albert °

Parsons! You can’t be,” I said. “Poor Albert Parsons is
dead. They hanged him for leading the first May Day
march in Chicago in 1886. He’s really dead.””

The stranger smiled and shook his head. “Tm like Joe

Hill, I never died,” said he.
“No, No!”’ I said again. “I put flowers on-your grave in
Waldheim Cemetery in Chicago. You’re really dead.”
“They only buried a body,” the smiling man replied.
“They didn’t bury me. Like Joe Hill I went on to organize.
My cause and I can never die. I was with Gene Debs in the
railroad strike of 1894. I was with Tom Mooney in San

Quentin. I was with. John Reed in the great workers’

revolution. I was with the fighters for the 8-hour day and
the CIO unions in the 1930’s. I was with Ben Davis and
Henry Winston in prison. And I spent a lot of time with
Martin Luther King and the Memphis garbage strikers.”
“You were in Memphis?,”’ | interrupted.
“Yes, indeed,” he replied. ‘You don’t know how much I
loved Martin Luther King. And you don’t know what the

victory of the garbage strikers means to me. I’m a Texan
you know. I’ve always dreamed of the time when black
and white workers would win in the South. The door is
open now. My movement — the Labor movement — can

teen years when I edited an anti-Klan paper 7 é pec
fought it again when I was a secretary of Je fots),
struction Legislature of Texas. The black pe0P pet!
beside me. I was often threatened, but the bl@
protected me.” aden y
A soft light came into his eyes as he continue ‘cy, a m 4
“TI was happy in that fight with my wife, re nev
side. She was a beautiful Indian girl, and she ,
afraid. ay”,
“You must never be afraid,” he went on. Be i er
more of your people as they killed Martin Lu dolf rise”
Memphis, and August Spies, George Engel, +: el! inf
and me in Chicago. But your cause will never @- oth 2
His last words faded away. And I remem d a bi8™ i
more until a big hand brought me to my feet a ou were
in blue said: ‘Good night, buddy. It’s time ¥'
bed.”
* *k *

st®

A beautiful letter to this column during the Pont jf
from Florence Bowes of Vancouver Oe d ‘8
Haymarket Martyrs of 1886 and Lucy Pars0ly pf
other founders — and victims of those early t
closer to us than ever before. “I heard poet! pe
Speak at the May Day rally in ’30; she was py psn
and not heard beyond the front seats. And in and no Pe,
her grave and that of the Haymarket Martyrs: tha Y
in Waldheim Cemetery is cared for betteE ©
one...” ch worn

How could it be otherwise? This site of tion st
class sacrifices, such May Day demonstra
dreams, and such glorious achievements? porter”

May Day greetings to all ‘PT’ readers and sur
is part of this glorious working class traditio™