jo Poy yy

Who's blocking PGE

line to North Van?)

asks LPP

nominee

NORTH VANCOUVER, B.C.

Who’s trying to block completion of the Pacific Great Eastern

Railway?

Why did the Johnson government decide to build a high-

Way to link up with the PGE at Squamish instead of extending the
Steel southwards to North Vancouver, the logical terminus for the

PGE?
_PGE issued by Tom McEwen,
Labor-Progressive candidate for
North Vancouver in the June pro-
vincial elections,

“Construction and completion
of the PGE has served as a handy
Politica] football for the past 25
Years. In every provincial elec-
tion for the past 35 years the rep-
Tesentatives of both old-line par-
Hes, Tory and Liberal, have used
Completion of the PGE’ as an at-
tractive vote-catching plank,’ de-
Clares McKwen.

“The history of that 35 years
of kicking the PGE around con-
tains one fundamental lesson for
the Deople: Get rid of the pro-
*ssional political footballers who
Play this PGE game according to
=. rules laid down by powerful

Nopoly interests such as the
: R, and let the people have a
sat through the medium of peo-

&'s representatives.”
th PGE, McEwen points out,
* born in a political morass

et and corruption with a
Mine Over ament acting as mid-
Rejey Contracting firms such as
ae y. Welch and Stewart robbed
ee of approxifately $6 mil-

M contract extras. PGE com-

TOM McEWEN
CPR influence at work

Dany’
Drown onas (guaranteed by the
to 4, la! government of the day)
801g peretie of $20,160,000 were
the polite nen tt 825. “Obviously
fee ee in both camps made

a6 illing on the construction
Where ailway which ‘began no-

€8nd ended nowhere’.”
Mchy

&

€n continues:
© records of the select

Panjj
wh 1, mentary Committee
thi,’,,,, 7 1917, investigated

tion ates tical graft and corrup-
the Sd cea at the birth of
Selya. ,’ “¥¢ sufficient in them-
Neg. establish the unfit-
ti the same political par-
Compe honestly with the
Pgn : 1on or otherwise of the
» 1952. The sudden and
n decision of the John-
Commie ent to switch from
Mi ng the PGE from Squa-
‘to 4 “0 North Vancouver, and
Dle pr & road instead, is

Cay hoay of that another politi-

- thts Se in the making.

Niniste, “Ch Cates, Coalitionist
Tetury ,0f labor, has decided to
Potecio the more honorable
he coula 4 of tugboating, perhaps
tell the people of North

These questions are asked this week in a statement on the

Vancouver just how, and why, at
the last moment, the Johnson gov-
ernment decided on a road from
Squamish to Horseshoe Bay rath-
er than extending PGE steel from
Squamish to North Vancouver.
His story would undoubtedly re-
veal the powerful hand of the
CPR monopoly, which does not
want to see the PGE linked up
with the CNR at Prince George at
one end, and North Vancouver
and tidewater at the other.

“While completion of the PGE
from Squamish to North Viancou-
ver it vital to the industrial and
agricultural development of a
great and potentially rich area of
B..C, it has a special interest for
the people of North Vancouver
constituency,

“Certainly no resident of West
Vancouver wants a railway run-
ning right through his front
porch, but neither does he want a
substitute road (at tremendous
cost) which will cut southbound
PGE freight volume in half. if
not more, With the PGE now be-
ing completed at‘ the north end
from Quesnel to Prince George,
and for the first time in its his-
tory, operating ‘in the black’
with a slight margin of profit, sub-
stitution of a highway for the
logical extention of the steel is
shortsighted and restrictive.

“There need be no argu-
ment on which should have pre-
ference or which is needed

* most. The people of North Van-
couver ‘riding need both — a
hard-surfaced road to Squa-
mish and the PGE running into
North Vancouver. But if the
immediate interests of British
Columbia and the people of this
riding in particular are given
priority as the determining fac-
tor for either or both, then it
must be obvious that movement
of freight and access ‘to mark-
ets, domestic and foreign, de-
mands the earliest completion
of the PGE at its southern end.

People who have watched the
“PGE political football game, dur-
ing the past 25 years.’ says Mc-
Ewen, will note that ‘‘the 1952
series has opened with a CPR foul
kicked off by a government which
until recently was representative
of two parties, Liberal and Tory,
that have forfeited every claim to
the confidence of the people of
BOs:

McEwen closed his statement
with the suggestion that North
Vancouver electors invite all can-
didates to state their stand on the
PGE issue.

Plight of South Koreans

LiL Lt LAU

Outbreaks of typhoid and other diseases is North Korea and China, although no such ontbreaks
have been reported from South Korea, were noted by r. F. A. Walton, of New Westminster, as
evidence of bacteriologica warfare in presenting a paper to the third B.C. Peace Conference here
last weekend, Dr. Walton, pointed out that the plight of thousands in South Korea, indicated by
this picture of South Koreans lining up for their meagre rice ration, the fitlh and squalor in whidh
they are forced to live, provided all the conditions for spread of such epidemics in South Korea if

they occurred naturally.

Conference of organizations
in fishing industry called

to discuss market crisis

Organizations in the B.C, fishing industry will hold a conference in Hotel Georgia here on

May 5 to discuss markets and trade in fishery products.

Invitations have gone out to all fishing

companies, the Fisheries Association, all fishing cooperative organizations, the Native Brotherhood, of
B.C., Vancouver and Prince Rupert Vessel Owners, Prince Rupert

locals of the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union.

Cal) to the conference was
signed by a three-man prepara-
tory committee: Harold Christen-
son, Vessel Owners; Ed Nahaney,
Native Brotherhood; and Homer

Stevens, UFAWUW.

‘We are seriously concerned by
the considerable carry-over still
on hand, of part of last year’s
canned salmon production and
even more so by the continuing
trend toward the establishment
of further obstacles to “the flow
of trade between Canada, the
British Commonwealth and other
countries,’ said the call. ‘““What-

ever the cause of these restric-

Deep Sea Fishermen’s Union and

tions, the effect on our liveli-
hood, unless some radical meas-
ures are undertaken without de-
lay, could become very serious.”

Purpose of the conference, says

the call, is to:

@ Permit all participants to
‘exchange information and views
on all matters pertinent to the
general subject of the confer-

ence.

@® Seek areas of agreement as
to proposals for remedial meas-
ures to be presented to govern
mental authorities or to be im-
plemented by the participating
organizations.

Partially crippled

by arthritis

Veteran protests $12.50 pension *

William Cunningham, Dos. O01

858 Hastings Hast, is a Second
World War veteran who is par-
tially crippled by arthritis and is
trying to Tive on a $12.50 army
pension while seeking a reboard
and increased pension from the

government.
“No one can get along on that

sum,” Cunningham told the Paci-
fic Tribune this week. “T feel
that I’m eligible for social service,
on the grounds of general debility,
but I’m being shoved from pillar

to post in my attempt to get at. !”

‘Last month he received $22.80
from social service. This month
he hasn’t been able to get any-
thing, : :

Cunningham joined the army
in 1941 and was given an Al
eategory. A year later he was
hospitalized in Valcartier, Que-
bec, and treated for arthritis. In
1943 he was discharged as medi-
cally unfit.

After leaving the army he work-
ed for a short time in local ship-

yards, but was discharged because
of chronic rheumatism and arth-
ritis in the feet. In 1946 a spe-
cialist diagnosed his ailment as
osteo-arthritis. He was refused un-
employment insurance under Sec-
tion 28, “unable to work within
the meaning of the Act.”

Cunningham is carrying on his
battle for a reboard with army
hospital authorities. and is fight-
ing for assistance from social ser-
vice authorities in order to keep
alive,

Must fight
perversion
of culture

Canadian culture is being per-
verted as the natural, inevitable
outcome of a policy of war, said
Miss Beatrice Ferneyhough, pres-
enting a paper on “Culture for
Peace” at the third British Col-
umbia Peace Conference in Pen-
der Auditorium last weekend.

“The attempt to degrade, to
brutalize, to dehumanize our peo-
ple in order to condition them for
war originates in the United
States,’ continued the speaker.
“A flood of filth is pouring along
every cultural channel.

“We must fight back. We must
not allow the voice of peace to be
stilled. Rather we must swell
its volume, gain new audiences
fon it, new arenas for it to resound
in,

“We must fight for our civic
centres and new libraries; for
community cestres; for schools in
which our children wil] know and
thrill of positive achievement, not
the numbing fear of senseless
atom bomb drills; for grants to
our symphony orchestras and art
galleries commensurate with the
role they should play in our na-
tional life.’

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — APRIL 25. 1952 — PAGE 3