— Cost of living - and dying

JPCURES tabled in the House of Commons this week reveal the

financial cost of Canada’s participation in the Korean war.
Up to the end of November, Canada’s 25th Brigade in Korea cost
Canadian taxpayers $72,636,064. Air force participation took an-
other $8,951,334. while our naval contribution zo Wall Street
“democracy” added another $6,639,803. Thus to date the UN
(read US) aggression in Korea has cost Canadians some $88,227,-
201.

All that is quite exclusive of the cost in dead and broken
men, which can never be tabulated in dollars, despite the cold-
blooded efforts of bourgeois statisticians to do so. The .cost of
the dead and the maimed is borne in the hearts of the people
only. The millions of dollars squandered in this war adventure
represent the taxes gouged out of the Canadian people to provide
fat profits for the armament manufacturers and the warmongers.

_ Nearly ninety million dollars and the end is not Wel Lt.JIs
all presented with a straight face and represented as “defense.”
Yet there is not one solitary Canadian capable of ‘honest thinking
who believes ‘Canada faces any danger from or needs any “defense”
against Korea, China or any other nation. Why then, must Can-
adian taxpayers see their substance wantonly squandered in war
against a people with whom Canada has no quarrel? The deputy
minister of defense skipped that part of it when tabling his war
expenditures in the House.

The UN (read US) ‘has been compelled by mass popular world
opinion to engage in peace talks in Korea. It does So reluctantly,
availing itself of every technicality 'to obstruct these peace talks.
The minister's figures, only a small portion of the total UN cost
in dollars, explain why. For the warmongers of Wall Street and
their satellites in Ottawa and elsewhere, big war budgets mean
big profits. In 1953-4,, when U.S. arms expenditures will reach
their peak and, as now planned, start to decline, U.S. News and
World Report predicts a sharp cutback in what British- Columbia’s
Finance Minister Anscomb ‘terms our “Staggering prosperity.”
Peace talks threaten war profits, so the plan in Korea is to
obstruct and hinder the realization of peace.

Canadians must demand of the St. ‘Laurent government, not
an imposing financial accounting of our spoilation of Korea, but
leadership in winning peace for Korea, and social security instead
of war for Canadians.

= \

Menace to labor’s standards

ED in with the “staggering prosperity” of B.C. as seen through
the eyes of the Johnson-Anscomb -Coalition government, is
also the steady influx of DP immigration to swell the ranks of
a growing army of unemployed workers in this province.
Despite innumerable letters and resolutions of protest by
municipal councils against flooding their areas with jobless DP
immigrants, while a growing number of resident workers are
unemployed, both Ottawa and Victoria turn a deaf ear to these
warnings. Having handed over huge chunks of the peopie’s natural
resources to-the big monopoly interests, the Coalition government
now gives every encouragement to .Ottawa’s suicidal policy of

flooding the country with DP’s while Canadian workers remain .

jobless.

Civic officials in Port Alberni and similar industrial centres
have drawn ‘to the attention of Victoria the menacing growth of
unemployment, doubly aggravated by a daily influx of near-desti-
tute DP’s, but all to no avail. Obviously the “staggering” ‘(pros-
perity” so loudly proclaimed by spokesmen for the big monopoly
_ interests and their political henchmen requires a huge standing
_ army of part-time and unemployed workers to keep it “staggering.”

It is not so many years ago that the Same people were} howling
to high heaven to warn workers against coming to B.C. “There’s
nothing here for them,” they said, “and we can’t afford to provide
relief for ‘outsiders.’” ‘Now they sing a different tune and with
the aid and connivance of provincial and federal governments,
gather up the Nazi off-scourings of Europe to help maintain their
Staggering profits and break down ‘hard-won union standards.
"No less than 129,885 immigrants were admitted to Canada during
‘the first nine months of 1951, and the St. Laurent government

hopes to double the figure in 1952. The great majority of the 1951
_ immigrants were DP’s. ‘

We have nothing against normal immigration into ‘Canada,
_ if and when employment at Canadian standards is available to
= all Canadians, with a like opportunity to the newcomers. But
~ DP immigration is a political weapon, designed to flood the labor

market with an element that is basically anti-union and anti-
democratic; an element schooled in the totalitarian concepts of
fascism, and as such, a menace ‘to all standards of progress

established by Canadian workers.
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As We See It

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RRteeH COLUMBIA’S timber tsar, H. R. Mac-

- Millan, speaking at the so-called Founder’s Day
luncheon of the Vancouver Board of Trade, gave
out with a few lusty “free enterprise” burps, well
calculated to put his audience in a trance.

The ‘big man was speaking of the “‘phenom-
enal growth” of B.C. during the past two decades,
a development which he ascribes entirely to the
“motive power” of free enterprise’ and, it goes
without saying, ‘to ‘the “free enterprisers” who
made “it ... happen in a country which cherishes
its freedom.”

Naturally, the big man was quite modest
about his own “contribution” and made no refer-
ence whatever to the annual twelve or fourteen
million dollars profits he pockets annually from
the unpaid labors of thousands of loggers and
millworkers. We can appreciate the big man’s
modesty in not belaboring this point. Hundreds
of unemployed lumberworkers tramping the Van-

couver skidroad might get wise as to who pocket- -

ed the bulk of the wealth ithey had created!

Yet they were not entirely forgotten in. Mac-
Millan’s ripsawody. The great man recalled the
“early days when people with ambition could
elect to work 18 or 20 hours a day and carry
packs of 75 to 90 pounds.” Now, of course, we
don’t want ‘to go back to the 20-hour day, but...
and the great man’s “but” is quite revealing—“we
should learn that a certain amount of self-sacri=
fice is expected . . . to accomplish a particular
purpose.”

There is nothing so charming as the ability
to choose the correct words when glossing over
'bare-faced piracy and robbery. People in ‘the big
man’s fairy tale could “elect to work 18 or 20
hours sa) days -5 1? Naturally, there were other
“incentives” to ‘help along this “electing,” such as
the open-shop blacklist, the take-it-or-leave-it dic-
tum of anti-union boss loggers, the whiplash of
intimidation, discrimination and, not least, the
necessity of eating! British Columbia’s lumber
tsar would like to see recaptured a little of those
good old days, which he catalogues under the
charming term of “sacrifice.” i

Striking a dramatic , pose, the great man

warned his audience that “this is no time to go -

soft”; that British Columbia’s growth has been
indeed worth while and “worth defending against
our country’s only potential enemy, Soviet Rus-
sia.” ; e

The great man has a keen mind when it
comes to stripping the wealth of B.C. from its
wealth producers. We can also appreciate his
dislike for socialism. Any monopolist who can
pocket an annual fourteen million bucks profit
from the toil and sweat of others is scarcely
expected to be an enthusiastic advocate of any
social change which might cut down on his “free
enterprise” thievery!

If and when the need ever ‘arises to defend
British Columbia from any aggressor, it is searce-
ly likely that the H. R. MacMillans and their
fellow buccaneers will be in the front ranks of
the defenders. History, even very recent ‘history,
teaches us that it was this class which betrayed

nations and peoples to the Hitlerite enemy; the
Same gang which is today betraying Canada—
our own British Columbia—to ‘tthe new Hitlerism
of dollar-imperialism. The real defenders of
Canada or British Columbia are the people; the
people who work for peace; the people whose
toil produces all the wealth; the people whom
the MacMillans deceive and despoil.

We don’t want to be a killjoy and spoil the
Board of Trade’s luncheon entertainment, but felt
it our. civic duty to insert the correct emphasis in
the great man’s crackers-and-cheese oratien.

As the saying goes, “It never rains but it
pours.” We ‘had just begun to recover from Mac-
Millan’s homily on how to get rich quick and
avoid the pitfalls of socialism, when along came
“‘Eartless ’Erbie” or, to give him his full title,
Hon. Herbert Anscomb, minister of finance in the
Coalition government, with a loud hallelujah for
our “staggering”: prosperity. We now ‘have his
iron-clad ministerial assurance that come what
may, British Columbia is now “depression proof.”

Our production for 1951 over last year, in
terms of dollars has increased by $100 million or
more, and now totals around the one billion mark.
Big increases are seen in our:four leading indus:
tries, forestry, mining, fishing, and agriculture.
Then, of course, there is the new aluminum pro-
ject which adds its mite to our “prosperity.” We
can agree with the minister (without benefit of
a shot of his special brand of tiger juice) that
British Columbia is indeed prosperous, but the
profit statements of the MacMillans and their
kind show the “prosperity” more than a little
lopsided in how it is distributed among British
Columbians.

It is scarcely to be expected that any of our
readers will take issue with ‘’Eartless ’Erbie” on
the fact that there is a goodly number among our
leading monopolists and their families who can
readily be classed as “depression proof.” The
CM&S, the big boys of the timber trust, the
BCElectric, the packing trusts and the “agricul-
turalists” who farm the farmers, all these with
annual profits ranging from ten to twenty million
dollars, should have little difficulty in weathering
a depression. In fact, we would join unanimously
with the minister and say that these are absolute-
ly “depression proof.”

But the others—the vast majority of British
Columbians, workers, farmers, small and middle
business men—are not so well situated. The fact
is countless thousands of them are in a depression
now, with unemployment, prices squeeze, barred
markets and a guns-before-butter economy that is
turning ‘British Columbia into a warmonger’s
paradise and a nightmare of uncertainty for its

common people.

The picture is indeed “staggering” as “’Eart-
less ’Erbie” says, but the staggers stem from a
growing sense of insecurity rather than from the
rosy glow to be derived from imbibing too freely
of what might, for want of a better word, be
called Anscomb’s “depression goof.”

Brewery workers get short - changed

Te long 45-day drouth is over.

the brewery’ workers officially ended last Sat-
urday. The beer parlors are open and the suds
are flowing. The ‘brewery workers “won” a
27'4-cent an hour increase, with an escalator cost-

The strike of

the next ‘two-and-a-half years, from July 1951 to
December 1953.

Some union members have stated they could
have got the 27%4-cent increase without going on
strike and, since no retroactive provision is in-
cluded in the settlement, have added that for once
the governmental practice ‘of referring to strikes
as “days lost” contains a modicum of validity.

Beer is big business in B.C. and plays an

important role in our two-party tweedledee- .

tweedledum way of life. The big brewers and

The new agreement will cover |

the organized hotelmen, together with their Lib-
eral and Tory political henchmen, invariably man-
age a “gentleman’s agreement” whereby the
ratio of beer profits keeps pace with the political
interests of the gang in power. In sucha setup,
and in the absence of alert and militant leader-.
ship, the workers invariably get short-changed in
their legitimate demands.

Using the wage increases granted the brew-
ery workers and the earlier pay ‘hike of 25 cents
an hour won by the beverage dispensers, the beer
barons are already talking about upping the price

of suds—or perhaps lowering the “Plimsol line” ae .

on the regulation glass, to make up for what
they are alleged to have “lost” by the strike!

If anybody lost in this deal it was the brewery
workers,

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — DECEMBER 14, 1951 — PAGE 8 -