_ recently, beef production has been

Farmers see subsidies,
not price Increases, as.
answer to their needs —

By MINERVA MILLER

LANGLEY, B.C.

The small farmer in British Columbia is having the same hard struggle to make ends meet as the

wage worker in the cities.

necessary protective foods at prices

At the present moment the gen-
eral public is being prepared for
a further increase in the price of
milk. As the record shows, such
an increase could only lead to a
further cut in consumption with
a consequent contraction of the
farmer’s market. Undoubtedly the
great majority of milk producers
require an increase in the price of
their product.
farmer who
has few feed resources of his own.

Operating on a small acreage
he is forced to buy almost all of
his feed. At present in this year
of drought, he is lucky if he can
buy hay at $40 a ton. If, as is
usually the case, he hasn’t the
money to put in his winter supply
but must buy as he requires it, he
will have to purchase hay at prices
higher,than $50 a ton, unléss the
government steps in to provide
relief feed, @ subsidy or places
curbs on the price.

Since a milk cow requires two
tons of hay to winter it and about
50 cents a day for dairy mash, it
will cost in the neighborhood of
$175 to winter a cow.

Obviously, the farmer cannot
carry on.very long at this rate.
But if the volume of his market
in the cities is to be maintained,
there is no.solution for him in
higher prices to the consumer.
The problem must be tackled at
the other end—curbs on the feed
companies, action to prevent
speculation in hay, and‘ an at-
tack on the. considerable spread
between a price of just over nine ;
cents a quart received by the
farmer and the consumer’s price.

Such a program would win the
support of the great majority of
farmers. Unfortunately, there. is
a small group of very big, and also
quite vocal farmers who thus far
have scorned subsidies as “chari-
ty,” insist on higher retail prices
and regard the profits of the dis-
tributing companies as sacred and
untouchable.

The reason for this isn’t hard to
find. Among: the most influential
of the big producers is a group
who are shareholders and direc-
tors in some of the distributing
companies. They are part of big
business both as large scale far-
mers and as distributors. As
might be expected, their policies
are vigorously pursued at Milk
Board hearings. The smaller far-
mers who live by their own labor
and have a real community of in-
terests with the city ‘workers in
that they are both victims of big
business, are too rarely represent-
ed, a fact which points to the need.
of organization among the farmers.

It should be noted, however, so
acute and so wide in scope has the
feed problem become, that the pro-
posal for subsidies is meeting with
wider support from all farmers, as
winter approaches. ‘

* * *

The same feed problem operates
in relation to production. of beef.
Small farmers’ costs are tremen-
dous, but there is a widespread re-
cognition that’ present retail prices
are self-defeating. Actually, until

the most profitable branch of agri-
culture. Medium steers listed at
$30 per hundred live weight dress’
out to yield the farmer in many
cases 60 cents a pound. Here again
a distinction must be made be-
tween the small and big producer,
At present prices of feed the small
farmer needs this price.

The bulk of a ae produced not
by the small farmers but by the
big operations in the Cariboo such
as the Spencer ranches or some
of the big American outfits, where
1500 to 2000 and evén higher num-
bers of beautiful white-faces at-
tached to one ranch may roam

This is particularly |
true of the smaller

_ prices remain at the same out-

thousands of acres of choice pas-

.

tities to the consumer.

For him, the solution is not in further increases
compel the people in the cities to buy less, but in curbing the
panies which are making huge profits at his expense—and in su

But nee a cent for housing

in consumer prices which

big feed, wholesale and transportation com-
bsidies which will keep him producing the
within reach of te average wage-earner. - a

\

Twenty-one pregnant women

government order commandeering the shelter for use as a fighter squadron barracks.

and princesses, but not a cent for housing.”

leader of a tenants’ delegation to board of control, said “enough money can be found for dogs, cats

ULL ULL ULC MMMM atta MM ttt}

{WA district holds
next annual convention
here next January

B.C. District, International
Woodworkers of” America, will
hold its next annual convention
in Vancouver, January 29 - Feb-
Tuary 1, 1952, IWA executive an-
nounced this week.

Application has been made for
a conciliation board to settle the
dispute with Interior operators
affecting some 7,000 workers in
seattered camns and mills in

a central and southern

BULLE CUL EG MEAT it TT

ECE MB ELE

‘

e

and 498 children are among those facing eviction at Uplands shelter

‘Ernest Gervase,

U.S. fishermen

profest Japan
luna dumping —

Two hundred and _ fifty a
boats took part in a demonstraus”
against importation of

tuna, which, American fisherme?

i these
say, is reducing the price they

ceive for tuna caught in & ae
Coast water to the “starve
level.” ay ee

A statement issued by the ie
ermen’s ‘division of the gon: ;
tional Longshoremen and ato
housemen’s Union and directe ae
Pacific Coast tuna boat ee Bi,
and fishermen proposed tha Rica
Japanese tuna be used to - any,
the Japanese and other Asie ae .
ple whe. need it “instead of Benet
dumped onto our’ markets at ba ‘
expense -both of our fighermeD “
the peoples of Asia.”

The union warned tha ie
of the tuna packers who are eee
plaining about Japanese ees i
have their own agents in Japa _
snapping up all available tee

“Our government has grea el
the way for expansion of Je
nese imports and fishing activi’)

with the excuse that the bread 2? as

: nd-
butter of our fishermen is sec?”

Japanese Ras ;

t ‘many She

ary to global war politics,” sai
the ILWU fishermen. ‘
r
PUC refused fo give
Pe: er

figures on BCEleciric —

Vancouver City Council se
week authorized hiring of a0 © :

pert to probe -BCElectric’s financial ay
structure in preparation {f0F ihe
September 24 hearing for rate a
creases and an October 24 het:
ing for bigger allowable amet
Council will decide this Toe %
whether it will authorize OPPO? ©
tion to rate increases, j

4 es
Former city engineer Charles

Brakenridge told aldermen hé o6o :

asked the PUC for BCE 1
figures on September 1 but
commission refused to make the?
available. . j ;

the

|ture leased for a song and labor

costs are reduced to a minimum
by the employment of Indian cow-
hands at shamefully low rates of
pay. These are the interests which
are really making a: killing out of
beef and their prices in the stock
yards are still remaining firm.

A fact that is not widely known
in the cities, however, is that most
small farmers’ do not sell at the
stockyards, where transportation
costs are a factor which may make
the shipment of one or two ani-

mials prohibitive, but at the local|

auctions which take place every
week at such places as Cloverdale,
Langley, Abbotsford and Mission
in the Fraser Valley. .

It would surprise many city
people to know that the price of
cattle in the local auctions which
supply a large proportion of Van-
couver’s meat has fallen by at
least 30 percent in the - past
month. Thus thousands of cattle
from small producers in the low-
er mainland are being bought by
the big packing companies at
Sharply reduced prices while city

rageous levels. _

x * *

For poultry “producers, subsidies
also provide the key which could
open the way out of the present
difficulties. Farmers selling eggs
are receiving the best prices in
years. A farmer at present. re-
ceives an average of about 59 cents
per dozen, the medium price, after
grading for cracks, mishapen or
smaller eggs is made. But he pays
$3.70 for a sack of wheat, a price
which represents at least a 100
percent advance on what the wheat
producer would receive for such:
low-grade grain. ‘

“I was better off,” says the ege
producer, “when I paid $1.75 for
wheat and received 33-85 cents a
dozen for my eggs.”

The. interests of city dwellers
and small farmers particularly co-
incidé in a program which curbs
the feed monopolies, provides sub-
sidies and keeps prices at a level
where protective foods can be
made available in increasing quan-

‘

declared the statement. “He will
not be the last, unless a halt is
called to such arrests.”

Hall was one of seven persons
recently arrested in Gestapo-fash-
ion dawn raids staged by the FBI

rested was Koji Ariyoshi, editor
of the progressive Honolulu Re-

| cord, ; ¢
Text of the U.S. Communist par-

ty’s statement read in part:

“The long arm of the McGrath
Gestapo has reached out into the
Pacific Ocean. The hydra-headed
Smith Act has struck once again,

rested at dawn, this time in far-
off Honolulu, Hawaii.
“The vicious’ dragnet let loose
by the (Supreme Court decision
of June 4 upholding this law now
has a total of 64 victims, indicted
under its fascist-like thought con-
trol section, ‘
“These latest arrests include the
chairman of the Hawaiian Com-
munist party and his wife, the
editor of a progressive newspaper,
a distinguished college professar,

International Longshoremen and
Warehousemen’s Union. Among
those who have been arrested thus

places are a number who are not
members of the Communist party,
as Attorney General McGrath re-

cently threatened would take place.

notorious Smith Act was characterized as a “
+} Communist party’s national committee last

“Jack Hall (regional director of the International Lon
Hawaii) is the first non-Communist labor

in Honolulu. Also amng those ar-|

and s€ven more persons are ar-.

and the regional director of the]

far under the Smith Act in several

7

week.

j i RHE -
tione gshoremen and Warehousemen’s union a
leader active in a unidn post to be jailed under the Smith Act ¥

‘NEW YORK

- “This demonstrates in life what
we Communists have repeatedly
warned — that the Smith and
McCarran Acts will start with
the Communists but will rapidly
spread to others. |

“These Hawaiian arrests clearly
demonstrate that the Smith Act
is a club aimed not only at the
Communist party but at the en-
tire labor movement.

“The target in Hawaii is a power-
ful fighting union headed by Harry
‘Bridges. This is the major labor
organization on the island. It has
fought for decent wages, hours
and working conditions for thous-
ands of exploited sugar and pine-
apple workers. Arrest of Jack
Wayne Hall, the union’s regional
director, is timed to disrupt cur-
rent contract negotiations, in which
Hall represents 19,5000 sugar work-
ers. ‘Attorney General McGrath
announces that the arrests are ‘ex-|
tremely important because of the
strategic importance of the Hawaii-

communists in the Pacific,’

“The mask is thus torn from
the Smith Act on this island of
the Pacific, when it attacks as
‘communism’ a union which suc-
cessfully challenged the power of
greed and gold of ruthless Ameri-
can capitalist interests there, a
union which unites Japanese, Chin-

an islands in our fight against]

ese, Negro, Malayan and white

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — SEPTEMBER 14, 1951 — PAG@

workers, ee ; ag,

“This is a forerunner of simil
attacks against progressive unions
here on the mainland. If Truma? —
and McGrath continue to pursue
the McCarthy-like pattern, no ae
tive union is safe. No labor leader

‘workers is safe. ; ee

; ‘the
who fights for the interests of ths ae

“This brazen anti-labor au
in Hawaii against a union whit? —
is the only weapon that the °P” 3
pressed people of Hawaii po’

to defend their living standard

is a danger signal to ev $5
American union member. It MUS
evoke a nation-wide protes™
Jack Hall is the first non-Com
munist labor leader active 1 ~

ar

U.S. labor warned as. FBI |
arrests non-Communist
union leader in Hawaii

" . x . : . &, . ; . . ae » ‘ i ¢ !
Arrest of a non-Communist trade union leader in FBI terror raids in Hawaii carried out under > |
danger signal to every American union member’’ by the aioe

union post, to be jailed under th@

Smith Act. He will not be t#@—

last, unless a halt is called hy aa

such arrests.” — zd

intl va
TD aaa

EAST END

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FULLY
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