COLUMBIA SELLOUT AT CRUCIAL POINT —See story below aire FRIDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1963 VOL. 24, NO. 50 >"10¢ Urge protest to WAC on Columbia sellout “Now is the time to protest in the strongest possible terms @8ainst ratification of the sellout Columbia draft treaty,” saidB.C, Communist Party organizer Charles Caron Wednesday, com- Menting on the Canadian-U.S.- B.C, talks going on in Ottawa. At press time reports indica- ted that a critical point had been Teached in the secret talks andit Was strongly hinted that U.S. re- Presentatives were making de- Mands on Canada which asked €ven more favorable terms for the U.S, Indications are that B. C. Premier W. A. C. Bennett is the key figure and ‘he is reported to be in hourly touch with the Ottawa talks, Bennett has pinned his whole Policy on pushing through the Sellout of the Columbia to the ‘S. and can be expected to ac- a4 almost any terms, as was Ndicated by his attempt to turn °Ver the Columbia to the Kaiser Interests a few years ago. Jobless UP Prices UP Profits UP b All economic trends appear to © going against the people andin vor of big business. F From Ottawa came a report his week that in mid-November 2 €stimated 303,000 or 4.5 per- Se of the labor force, was out i work, In B.C. 36,000 were Sted as jobless. Also, Ottawa reported the cost living had risen to a record ‘vel. In October it stood at 134, is report came on top of an Nounced raise in bread prices Vancouver by one cent a loaf, q d reports of higher medical and €ntal bills, 9 owever, those who are likely a €njoy the merriest Christmas © the stockholders and heads ig corporations. ‘ 5 Teport from J, R. Timmins es °., Toronto, said stockhold- Poence Canadian companies will d et almost $1 billion in divi- q Payments this year - the Shest in history. Caron urged that all patriotic people in B. C. who want to block the sellout, and want to see the Columbia developed for Cana- dians, to protestto Premier Ben- nett now against signing the give- away treaty. In Toronto this week C. S. Jack- son, national president of the United Electrical Workers Union (UE), wiredExternalAffairs Minister Martin protesting against ratifications of the pres- ent treaty. The wire said: ‘*We remind you that tens of thousands of Ca- nadians have spoken out against the Columbia sellout and for Mc- Naughton approach re Canadian priority in utilization of Canadian waters for power andirrigation.”’ BERT HERRIDGE, NDP-MP, last week offered to bet External Affairs Minister Paul Martin $1,000 that the Columbia Treaty would never be signed. By MAURICE RUSH Exhorbitant prices paid by th e consuming public for sugar in the past year has given the B.C. Sugar Refinery a huge operating profit of over $10 mikion. This was revealed in the company’s report for the year ending September 30 which showed an increase in profit of 78 per- cent over the previous year when the company’s profit was $5.6 million. The B.C, Sugar Refinery dom- inates the western Canadian and B.C, market and in 1957 was investigated under the Combines Act when it attempted to gain control of Manitoba Sugar and thus establish an outright mono- poly in western Canada, The Department of Justice Re- strictive Trades Practises Com- mission in a report dated Jan- uary 7, 1957, condemned the take- over as ‘‘not in the public interest.”’ However, the 1963 Survey of Industrials continues to list Man- itoba. Sugar as a subsidiary of B.C. Sugar, In admitting the huge increase in operating profits this year, Forrest Rogers, president of the sugar corporation, in his annual report, attempted to cover upthe real profit picture by attributing abnormal charges against this year’s earnings by the company. In this way the sugar monopoly is attempting to present a more *¢favorable’’ profit picture to the consuming public so that the bit- ter pill of high sugar prices is made a little sweeter to swal- low. The company’s report claims that income taxes were $5,307,- 000 for the year compared to $2,- 023,000 in 1962. Income tax ex- perts questioned by the PT said that this could not be a normal tax on operations and that some special assessment must have been involved. They say emphat- ically that such high income tax payment could not have resulted from the current year’s op- eration. A good guess is that a large share of this year’s profit was charged against last year’s pay- ment on stock dividends to dis- tribute large accumulated pro- fits. Last year a stock dividend was declared by the company for shareholders which gave one pre- ferred share to holders of each common share which was an equivalent handout of $20 for each common share to stockholders. Season’s greetings The editors and staff of the Pacific Tribune ex- tend Season’s Greetings to all our readers and sup-. porters with this 12-page Holiday Edition. ae Weare bringing out our Christmas edition earlier this year because the next issue of the PT will likely to tied up in the Christmas mail and may not reach many of our readers before the holidays. As a special Christmas feature we would like to draw your attention to the specially prepared article on page 9: “Christmas and its origins. We thank our readers for the support they have given us through the past year and we ask for that continued support to make the PT an even more effective weapon in the fight for peace, progress, | independence and socialism in the coming year. Pe “yo s '€ P. BOX 2180 VANCOUVERS. canany 9S: BUG a, MUTUAL 1.3214 ErineRY are. CABLE ADORE. SS "SUGAR: TELEX 04-5315 BAW’ VANCOUVER November 29, 1963 a Due to the h of the past] igher prices f, Nancial Or sugar t £9_be greater than nores] yee Profits of pss all see through wo col h. the + Uni company have decided that pe seats ences u. employees, The amount of eormals which takes feces ‘our bonus cheq 5 The ch individu iccount th, ue is enclosed with me al bonus h, ength of is letter Vv. the directo; 8 be paid to all perma, as been determi ned b; Service of each mentees this payment any has no wish t and I © receiv, dential as Seeibrs ee be obliged i¢ ee publicie from makin, t ki £ as confi- Your: Ee S very truly, are Kh ree oN sence ensiet Forrest Ro e President. 2 Encl. The above letter sent to all employees by Forrest Rogers, pres., of B.C. Sugar, admits ‘‘greater than normal”’ profits and asks work- ers to keep the information about a special bonus ‘‘as confiden- tial as possible.”’ On Nov. 29th, the president of B.C. Sugar, F. Rogers, sent a letter to all employees announc- ing a special bonus. In the let- ter, reproduced on this page, Rogers said: ‘‘Due to the high- er prices for sugar that pre- vailed through most of the past financial year, the profits of the overall company have proven to be greater than normal.,’’ After explaining that the bonus being given workers should ‘‘not establish a precedent’’ the letter concludes: *«The company has no wish to receive any publicity from mak- ing this payment and I would be obliged if each of you would keep it as confidential as possible.’’ This is one of the rare occa- sions on which a company hands out a bonus to its workers and wants absolute secrecy maintain- ed about it. Obviously, the comp- any is afraid that it might draw attention to the exhorbitant pro- fits it has made from charging high prices for sugar. Anxious to maintain its high profits into the next year the company announced in November that it will freeze sugar prices at the high price prevailing at Oct. 18. This was protested by NDP national leader T. C. Doug- las in Parliament and has forced Justice Minister Lionel Chevrier to say he would draw the atten- tion of combines investigators to the B.C. Sugar Co.’s action. At the time of writing the pro- vincial government, under whose jurisdiction prices are sup- posed to fall, has so far said nothing about the excessive pro- fiteering of the B.C. Sugar Re- finery at the expense of thecon- suming public. The disclosure of the large profits made from monopoly ope- rations once again points up the the need for action along the lines proposed last week by the Com- mittee for Fair Prices in Win- nipeg. In a brief tothe government the committee called for the follow- ing measures; * Establishment by law of a maximum allowable markup on food prices. The Federal govern- ment to fix by law a maximum rate of profit allowable for food processing companies, textile and clothing manufacturing, wholesale; jobbing and retail firms. * Abolition of the federal sales tax and its substitution by a cap- ital gains tax. * Federal government should impose an excess profits tax on all firms connected with the pro- duction of consumer goods. Action along these lines to pro- tect the Canadian people from monopoly profiteering inessen- tial commodities is long overdue. Civic election Vancouver election re- sults came too late to be published in this issue. Watch next week fora review of the election re- sults. i