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HE |
T B.C, Electric’s application to

© Publi ats ee
for 4 HOLe Utilities Commission
: Percent average electric

. oe much more to it

nn a € eye. While its im-
ill be hi ai on domestic users
| ahi. & s electricity bills, its
a‘ 8 objective is to serve as
ilities 1on” against certain eventu-

With
hat the PUC due to review
Ural g
a

a : :
fi S tates in August, against
stound

of monopoly mani-
ton and = P y

profiteering in the

’Vely

. Pm 5 Sy eee

MS ereat and. distribution of
Hse th Ratural resource, there is

Price 4 atest possibility that the
‘Umer .888 to the domestic con-
% Tight be reduced.
th
Posibit BCE seeks to offset this
better by a substantial hike in
I © Prices now.
t is
"aturay also apparent that since
“uy, S48 was brought into Van-

“Ndep “d nd the Lower Mainland
tto| Solute BCE monopoly con-

uA high
Carrie
Shy,

C
hel

"Pressure campaign has
a 4 on for homeowners to
P this gas’. How better to
ae along than by a
r hike in electric rates?
Sy “gain, having dominated
ani! government for
Ueto ree decades, the B.C.
tty, 8 COntrived and still con-
: & €xtend its own power
t the a holdings and franchise,
Be. Pee of the public-owned
‘a3 Corporation.

he
i ie Possible that the BCE sees
States wn rapid expansion its
*Wheng - afeguard against public
tty, © With the BCE having

; ae big and objectively, the

fa +0) i i
"“Ottce, &xpanded electric power
a: “ing so great, the BCE

I Scifi Tribune

Pyitone Mutual 5-5288
Nitigi, | — TOM McEWEN
"5 Editor — HAL GRIFFIN
; Subscription Rates:
One Year: $4.00
Six months: $2.25

ap, :
Roomy rushed weekly at
7 y. ~ 426 Main Street
p, “Bcouver 4, B.C.
sittin and Commonwealth
Car (except Australia): $4.00
* Australia, United States

ther countries: $5.00 one
year. oa:

SP increase for BCE

may be hoping to place. itself be-
yond the financial ability of any
provincial government to take it

over.

In these times of “fluid” poli-
tics bigger things have happened.
Back in 1947, an obliging Coalition
government, with the aid of Har-
old Winch, then CCF provincial
leader, despite a wide public senti-
ment for public ownership, man-
aged to secure its franchise for

another 20 years.

In the-CCF of today as in other
labor -and progressive organiza-
tions, weary of continued mono-
poly rooking, there is a more solid
and sustained desire for “taking
over,” in whole or in piecemeal,
those monopoly concerns whose
prime objective is to pluck the
people clean.

The job at the moment is to
impress the PUC with public sen-
timent and determination—no in-
creases to the BCElectric!

. EDITORIAL PAGE * - Comment
Extend Ul! benefits

ARLIAMENT will open on May
12. Present supplementary in-
surance benefits expire May 15. The
first and most urgent issue on the
House agenda should, in fact must
be, the increase and extension of
these supplementary benefits.

Unless this is done, thousands
of jobless workers and their fami-
lies from coast to coast will be in
dire need, dependent upon charity
or other handouts, with no income
of any kind and scant prospects of
jobs, despite optimistic reports from
National Employment Service—but
not from industrial employers.

In fact, one wonders why the
Diefenbaker government has not
already authorized this emergency
extension of unemployment bene-
fits without waiting for parliament
to meet.

Prime Minister Diefenbaker has
promised that he will allow “no
Canadian to suffer as a result of

” .
unemployment,” but fine words
butter no parsnips. These supple-
mentary unemployment benefits not

only require to be extended to every
unemployed worker so long as he
or she is unemployed, but must be
increased to compensate for the pay
envelopes jobless workers have lost
through no fault of their own.

When workers are forced to live
on present unemployment benefits
over a long period it means the loss
of millions of dollars in working-
class homes. Workers’ homes and
other possessions are jeopardised
and their families reduced to a
stark existence that mocks the
vaunted superiority of our way of

life.

When parliame:t opens the Die-
fenbaker goverment must get down
to the task of hammering out na-
tional policies and projects which
will provide jobs for the unem-
ployed. And in doing so, the gov-
ernment must give supplementary
benefits top priority so that job-
less workers and their families do
not “suffer” while policies and pro-
jects to provide jobs materialize.

HE old-style TV advertising on
poe to banish dandruff, have
gleaming white teeth or acquire
the new sack look, is on the way
out. The sales sharks have come
up with a new gimmick which
they call “sublimal’” advertising.

The general idea behind “sub-
limal” advertising is that view-
ers watching their favorite pro-
gram will be seized with the
urge to drink a few extra bot-
tles of “coke,” make a dash to
the bathroom to try out a special
brand of soap, or suddenly dis-
cover they have halitesis and
reach for the “sublimal” remedy
which the TV picture has im-
pressed upon their sub-conscious
minds. :

In other words, this ‘“‘sublimal”
advertising ‘will be sprinkled
through the picture instead of
the patient having to absorb
large doses of it before and after
(and between acts) of the feature
program. Needless to say, the

promoters of this “sublimal” ap-
preach to sales are already con-
vinced it will have a very bene-
ficial effect on profits.

Now the bosses are taking a
look at the great possibilities of
this “sublimal’” idea, other than
as a subtle method of advertis-
ing. Can it be used to create an
urge to work harder, avoid acci-
dents in industrial speed-up and
keep the workers’ minds off
wage increases?

J. R. White, president of Im-
perial Oil, addressing the To-
ronto Industrial Accidents Pre-
vention Association, suggests that
“perhaps if it (‘sublimal’ adver-
tising) were used as an educa-
tional technique (in industry) in-
stead of merchandising, it would
render its greatest and most
acceptable service.”

No doubt the big boss of Im-
perial Oil has in mind a series
of TV programs in which the
“sublimal” theme for proletarian
consumption will convey the idea
that longer hours and lower
wages spell “prosperity”; that
unions are superfluous, and that
the right of Joe Doakes to life,
liberty and the pursuit of a meal
ticket must be held inviolate.

As hungry chickens are said to
dream of millet, it would seem
oi] magnates dream of a well
“sublimated” proletariat.

Seldom has our ancestral pride
suffered such a mortifying blow
as last week when our Pure Food
and Drugs boys at Ottawa ban-
ned the importation of haggis
into Canada. Whether this gross
insult to Scotland’s national dish
was done at the instigation of
Canadian haggis makers or some
vindictive Sassanach in the de-
partment itself, we cannot say.

By comparison, however, we'd
say that much of the hitherto
imported haggis comes much
closer to pure food than some of
the home-made concoctions of
sawdust and lard sewed up in
what often looks like a piece of
old inner tube, and palmed off on
devotees of the cult as “haggis.”

But in this modern way of
life there are always compen-
sating balances. UBC scientists
have invented a pill which they
ciaim is a sure-fire “cure” for
H-bomb radioactive fallout.

New if we ‘get loaded with a
gutful of deadly Strontium 90
instead of haggis, all we have to
do is reach for the pills. These,
say UBC scientists, wi'l absorb
the Strontium 90 before the
Strontium 90 absorbs us.

Despite this encouraging ‘“dis-
covery” we would have preferred
that the Diefenbaker govern-
ment had banned the H-bomb
instead of banning the haggis.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 5

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