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Vancouver, B.C., Friday, December 12,1947 <>"

Five Cents

Vol. 6 No. 50

Byron I. “Boss” Johnson,
member for New Westminster,
emerged from the Liberal pro-
vincial convention on Wednes-
day as the new leader of the
Liberal Party in what can only
be interpreted as 2 concession
to the Conservative wing of
the Coalition government of
which he will be the new
leader,

It was wot without signifi-

cance that at the very time

the citizens of Vancouver were

registering their strong pro-
test vote against blatant dom-
ination of their civic and pro-
vincial politics by the BCElec-
tric, delegates to the Liberal
convention were naming & di-
rector of the same monopoly,
the B.C. Power and Light Cor-
poration, as the mew head of
the government.

Attempts by James Sinclair,
M.P. for North Vancouver, who
nominated Johnson, and Nancy
Hodges, member for Victoria
and reportedly in line for cab-
inet position, who seconded
the nomination, to depict John-
son as a fighting Liberal, could
not disguise the fact that he
was the Tory preference for
the leadrship and that the
consideration of preserving the

Coalition weighed heavily with
those delegates who supported
him.

Johnsom himself endeavored
to lend color to. the portrait
of himself the Liberals want
to present to the public by of-
fering high praise to former
Labor Minister George Pear-
son, but there was a warning
to labor not to relax its pres-
sure or its vigilance in his

onvention shows Liberal split

vague remarks about
tention “to initiate a labor act
to promote industrial peace in
the province’—the very phase
used by the Coalition last
spring to describe Bill 39.
There was also a hint of fu-
ture policy in his statement
that ‘great utility corpora-
tions desire a fair deal, but no
. Continued on page 8
See LIBERALS

LA
NON-PA

When the 43,000 votes cast i
Wednesday night, Charles
the Civic Non-Partisan
faction from his victory. For

Association nor th
: Effie Jones, Civic Refo

Jones was still mayor of Vancouver.
e BCElectric could derive much satis-
rm candidate and the first

i

“systematically

titude” towards
Union hurled against his owm
Sovernment by Lieut.
Raymond Marquie, ;
the French repatriation mis-
Slon in Moscow, has
@ political furore
is not to the liking of Am-
€tican diplomats.

Single development in Fra
Co-Soviet i \
Served to expose the anti
Soviet intrigues of the 8°¥"
€rnment under
Schuman and his predeces

Citizens rejected fare increase,
Effie Jones’ comment on vote

of the statement issued by Effie
on Wednesday night:

Following is the text
Jones, Civic Reform candidate,
The large vote

d re)
opinion is determined to bring to an en cera
to the BCElectric. The p'
epee ene ed out of our city hall. My vote is

BCElectrio politics clean
a vote against higher fares,
against big business do

city.

The vote indicates
the area in which the
two weeks’ campaign.
Paign which has caused

Continued on pase

PARIS—The charge of 3
malicious at-
the Soviet

Col.
head of

created
here which

other
n-
has

More than any

relations, it

premier

cast for me

against higher
tion of the administration of our

today is proof that public

gas rates, and

sor, Ramadier, in its en-
deavors to shape the future
of France to the aims of
the Marshall Plan. '
Marquie’s statement was 1S-
sued i Moscow after a
week’s exchanges between
the Soviet and French gov-
ernments, in which the So-
viet accused the French
government of persecuting
Soviet nationals in France,
ordered the expulsion of the

French mee:
and terminate
and the French government
retaliated by ordering expul-
sion of the Soviet repatria-

n the mayoralty contest had ‘been counted

But neither

woman to seek the mayoralty
in the city’s history, had roll-
ed up an impressive 19,218
votes behind her campaign
against fare increases. In
place of the easy two-to-one
victory forecast by the Van-
couver Sun and the News-
Herald, Charles Jones found
himself fighting for every poll
and only the downtown busi-
ness vote finally swung the
election in his favor with a
total of 24,135 votes.

“Effie Jones won a majority
of the popular vote. There
can’t be any dispute about

Continued on page 8
See ELECTIONS

Anti-Soviet charge
jolts French gov't

tion mission.

Marquie, whose charges
were backed by Lieut. Du-
mas, another member of
the French mission, reveal-
ed that the French govern-
ment had been plotting for
three months to evict the
Soviet mission from France
and stated that French
charges against members of

the Soviet ‘mission were
false.
The French mission in

Moscow, he said, had re-
ceived every cooperation
and courtesy from the So-
viet authorities.

BOR VOTE CRACKS
RTISAN FRONT

Profits up 136 percent,
real wages 2 percent

When price controls were lifted in 1945, corpora-
tion profits which had been rising steadily during war
years, began to soar, while real wages, which had
increased 34 percent since 1938, began to fall. By the
end of 1947, according to :
business forecasts, profits
generally will have soared to
136 percent above the 1938
level, while real wages, ac-
cording to the most recent gov- .
ernment estimates, are only
2 percent above the base year.

These are the alarming
facts which are spurring the
campaign now being con-
ducted by labor, farmers’,
housewives’ and other or-
ganizations for return of
price controls.

It is true, as this line-
chart shows, that money
wages average weekly wages
and salaries) have increased
nearly 70 percent since 1938,
but the increase in the cost
of living has wiped out the
gains in money wages.

(25 T

Unless wages are increased
substantially in the immedi-
ate future and price controls
are reimposed, real wages
will continue to fall and in-
creasing corporation profits
will intensify the crisis in
the country’s economy. 2

The rapidly widening Z
spread between monopoly oh
profits and workers’ in- 25 -
comes reflects the critical
unbalance between produc-
tion and consumption which
threatens to develop into
mass unemployment and the
lowest living standards in y
Canada since the worst de- ©
pression years. »

(See also feature section) Me:

(340 W

19746
1248 TY