K

EDITORIAL PAGE

Tom

Ps

T the time Mr. Justice Clyne issued

his report on the state of the dairy
industry in the Lower Mainland and
Fraser Valley, the daily press selected
what it considered to be the most
sensational feature of that report,
“dirty” dairy farms, and played it up
with screaming headlines.

The constructive features of _the
Cylne report were apparently of little
“reader interest” either to the milk
consuming public or to the big dairy
monopolists who were and are prim-
arily interested in squeezing the small
producer out of the industry. Henge
the “dirty milk” deluge by our free
press. :

Following the press presentation of
the Clyne report a large number of
“letters to the editor” began to appear,
many couched in quite strong language,
against the small dairy farmer. One
accused the small milk producers of
being “collectively guilty of attempted
murder.”

Then the small dairymen began to
hit back in similar “letters to the edi-

tor.’ Many of these letters were
politely rejected while the “dirty milk
campaign rolled on.

Thus silenced, some of the small
dairymen who had their licenses can-
celled, tried another tack. A dairy
farmer at Aldergrove wrote a letter
to Dr. Stewart Murray, of the Metro-
politan Health Committee, asking if
there had been any deaths or illness
in B.C. traceable to low-grade or in-
fected milk.

In his letter to this farmer Dr. Mur-
ray replied:

“There have been no deaths from
diseases traceable to low-grade milk
during the last ten years and because
of the high percentage of pasteuriza-
tion up until 1947, and 100 percent pas-
teurization since that time, no diseases,
-have been traceable to milk as arising
locally.”
Se ak xt %

So far, so good. However, many of
those dairy farmers who had their
licenses cancelled were subsequently
notified that their milk could only be
purchased “for manufacturing purposes

- . . but not for whole milk require- —

ments for the fluid trade,” which meant
that at six cents a quart it didn’t even
pay the farmer to milk the cow, and

particularly if Bossie was chewing her .

cud on hay or grain chop at $75 a ton.
It doesn’t take a skilled accountant
to figure out who gains and who loses
in this set-up. = fue
The same press which howled its
head off about “dirty” farms when it
got its heel into a well-placed cake of
.cow-dung, remains editorially silent on
the high cost of keeping Bossie alive.
For the “free” press $75 or $80 a ton
for hay just “ain’t hay.” :
- Meantime the central complaint of
the small dairy farmer remains; the
realization that through exorbitant re-
strictions and high production costs he
is gradually being squeezed out of his
“investment and livelihood—to provide
a wider field of exploitation and pro-
fits for the big dairy monopolists.

effe 1 e
Pacific ‘Tribune
Published weekly at
‘Room 6 — 426 Main Street
Vancouver 4, B.C. ‘
_ Editor°— TOM McEWEN_
Associate Editor — HAL GRIFFIN
' Business Manager — RITA WHYTE
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“Canadian and Commonwealth countries
(except Australia): $4.00 one year -
_ Australia, United States and all other
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Authorized as second class mail by
» athe. Post Office Department, Ottawa

* June 12 marked the 164th anniversary of the arrival of the Spanish

explorers Galiano and Valdez off Point Roberts in 1792. This picture,
received by Mayor Charles Cates of North Vancouver from the Naval Museum
at Madrid, shows the Sutil, commanded by Dionisio Galiano, and the Mexicana,
commanded by Cayetano Valdez. On June 22, 1792, the Spaniards met Cap-
tain George Vancouver off Point Grey and continued their explorations jointly

with him until July 13.

Who wants conscription ?

pee who may think that

with the easing of world ten-

sions the battle for peace has been

won, should never overlook the
fact that our military brass are
constantly striving to maintain the
cold war.

‘The latest of these is Lieut.-Gen-
eral Guy Simonds, former Cana-

~ dian Army chief-of-staff, who told

the Canadian Legion convention in
Vancouver this week that all 16-
year-olds should be conscripted
from one to two years for ‘‘military
indoctrination.”

Conscious, of course, that con-
scription isn’t popular in Canada,
Simonds used some double-talk to
soften the word, but left no doubt
in the minds of his audience (or the

public) as to just what he meant.
His proposal for a system of “‘na-
tional selective service’’ means con-
scription.
NATO's deputy chief Field
Marshal Viscount Montgomery,.on
his recent visit to Canada, sounded
off in a similar vein on the need
for ‘‘preparedness”’ along with his
expressed readiness to toss H-bombs
“anywhere, anytime.’ All this

means, in the language of top mili- -
tary brass, the herding of our young ©

men into uniform for training for
war.

Only the sharpest determination
to win peace and outlaw all weap-
ons of mass destruction will silence
those who make war a profession.

No sale of PGE

LN, eight: June 11, was a
big day for this province
when the first train rolled into
North Vancouver from Squamish
over the Pacific Great Eastern Rail-
way. With that vital rail link of-
ficially opened, our northern in-
terior was brought to tidewater.

For well over 40 years, old-line
politicians angling for votes at elec-
tion time have repeatedly pledged
themselves and their parties to com-
plete the government-owned PGE.
These repeatedly broken promises
to extend a railway which long
held the unique reputation of “‘be-
ginning nowhere and ending the
same place’ were hardy perennials
that bloomed only at election time.

Now this key link in the PGE
is completed, with the perspective
of driving north from Prince
George into the rich Peace River
country and perhaps to the Yukon-
Alaska border. And the credit
for erasing the effects of a railway
scandal that rocked this province
in 1916-17 must go to the Social
Credit government. __

Having said that however, a
word of warning is timely. In the
eyes of most people, whatever the
thinking of the government, the
PGE isn’t being completed for the
purpose of selling it as a going con-
cern to American rail magnates.
There has been a great deal of well-
founded rumor and speculation on
this possibility for some time, rum-
ors strengthened by other Socred
giveaways to Yankee corporations.

The PGE must remain the pro-
perty of the people who sustained
it for long years when it was a
liability, and who expect to bene-
fit by its completion now that the
liability has become an asset. In
congratulating the government for
completing the PGE, we join with
others in saying “‘No sale.”

HENEVER I read that the bus-
W iness leaders of our country are
gathering for sessions of the Can-

know that over the next few days
I shall be reading statements that
have not changed substantially since
the CMA held its first meeting 85
years ago, The question under dis-
cussion may be as timely as the
day’s headlines, the speaker may
pride himself on being as modern

chinery in his plant, but the under-
lying philosophy will be as anti-
‘quated as the wood-burning locomo-
ive.
: The CMA has just concluded an-
other meeting at Toronto and once
again the men who shape the na-
tion’s economy have solemnly warn-

burden in terms reminiscient of the

Hal
Griffin

-adian. Manufacturers Association I’

in his outlook as the automated ma-_ :

‘ed each other about the taxpayers”

late Senator Arthur Meighen who

mocked the unemployed of an earlier ©

generation with his homilies about
hard work, honesty and thrift.
$e xt x
Our business leaders have set
themselves out to correct the im-
pression most of us hold that fed-
eral health insurance would be a
good thing — an impression usually
gained from bitter personal experi-
ence.
But why belabor difficulties some

~ of us know all too well... the weeks

or months of illness when all earn-
ings stop and finally the toting up
of medical bills that may take years
to pay. This is not an experience
that business executives normally
share, any more than they share
the belief that federal health in-
surance would be a good thing.
But where any worker can sup-
port his conviction with the strong-

est of arguments, business leaders, .

it seems, can only flail the wind with
wordy speeches about undermining
“our Canadian initiative and incen-
tives.” ; i

Listen to this profound observa-
tion by J. C. Broatch of the Cana-
dian Fishing Company of Vancou-
ver:

«_,. Agitation will no doubt con- ~

tinue for a plan of federal govern-
ment control over all hospital, doc-

_ the last straw comes:on the camel’s

tors, drug stores, clinics and medical
schools. The result will be a high
cost, low quality type of socialized
medicine, and a tax burden which
will undermine our Canadian ini-
tiative and incentives.”

That remark could not have been
bettered by the late U.S. Senator
Robert A. Taft who urged the Am-
erican people to “produce more and
eat less” in a country now bulging
with surplus food. Unfortunately
Broatch can only be referred to as
late in.a political sense.

Another delegate, Col. Wallace
Goforth of Toronto, rounded out
Broatch’s remarks by asserting, “I
am quite sure no Canadian citizen
wants to experiment with just where

back, or rather the Canadian tax-
payer’s back.” Present federal health
insurance policies, -he said, would
cost $238 million a year.

Perhaps, speaking to themselves
in their customary well-appointed
surroundings, all this sounds quite
plausible to our business leaders and
Goforth can boldly express a confi-
dence that would be shattered at
any union local meeting.

To the ordinary taxpayer, car-
rying the $2.3 billion arms burden
of a cold war budget, to say that we
cannot afford $238 million for health
sounds like the sheerest nonsense.

June 15, 1956 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 5