MINIATURE. . YARDSTICK DEVISED BY _ OUR CONSUMER PRICE INDEX ” EXPERTS / 25 years ago car TORONTO JOBLESS PARADE FOR WORK “Over 100 Toronto unemployed - workers paraded Feb. 3 on busy Queen St. from Spadina to City Hall, where they -presented de- mands for a 50%. increase in benefits, cash relief and jobs to members of the Board of Control. Led by the Union of Un- employed Workers they packed the publc galleries as spokesmen for the delegation asked the Board to take their demands to the . federal government and _ help’ finance a delegation of jobless to Ottawa. - : Three-quarters of “the delega- tion were receiving no benefits at all and most slept on the Mission. floors at night an unemployed worker said. ' The Tribune Feb. 15, 1954. Profiteer of the week: PERHAPS, BUT OUR FRIENDS IN THE ' ‘CORPORATE ELITE’ FIND IT JUST GREAT FOR MEASURING ‘COST OF LIVING: ALLOWANCE’, US 2-79 ° 50 years ago... - PRODUCTION HIGH WAGES LOW According to the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, Ottawa, it is clearly seen that wages in Canada are far behind the pace of the growth of production. The aver- age yearly earnings of wage ear- ners, in manufacturing for 1926 was only $1,003. A $32 increase over 1925. Salaried workers re- ceived an average of $1,867, an increase’ of $24 over the previous year. While wages show an increase of 3.3%, the cost of materials in- creased 8.25% and the value _ added by manufacturers increased by 11.23%. This means that wages are not keeping pace with produc- tion. Feb. 10, 1929. Landlords and developers always cry if their victims are left with enough for a down payment on a roast of beef, but Cadillac Fair- view Corp. Ltd., which is both landlord and developer was able to wipe its tears long enough to read its profit figure for the nine — months. ended Nov. 30, 1978 — $18,095,000.. That’s up from the tax-free $17,084,000 they got in the same period a year earlier. Figures used are from the company’s financial statements. Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN Associate Editor — FRED WILSON Business and Circulation Manager — PAT O'CONNOR Published weekly at Suite 101 — 1416 Commercial Drive, Vancouver, B.C. V5L 3X9 Phone 251-1186 Subscription Rate: Canada $10 one year; $6.00 for six months; All other countries, $12 one year. Second class mail registration number 1560 EDITORIAL COMMENT War on profits? Hardly! Liberal Cabinet ministers have been putting on a show of sparring with the twin dragons of inflation and ‘pro- fiteering — the latter by the multi- nationals and Canadian monopolies alike. Pressed into a corner by the rising tide of outrage, these spokesmen for the corporate elite have finally blurted out that there is a direct connection between _record profits and inflation. The big business media are .so alarmed they want a scapegoat right away, so as to get the thing off the agenda before the elections. - Elections do strange things to the anti-labor Liberal. and Tory parties. They must do everything to win the franchise, and hence the media support, of the decisive sectors of big business. But they must also parade as champions of working-class familites. Incongruous. Recently Warren Allmand, minister of consumer affairs, replied to a ques- tion on super profiteering by monopoly corporations, saying the government was “concerned”. What joy for the mass of poor, deprived and _ desperate _ families across Ganada!. But Allmand didn’t think his modest little ministry could do anything about price rollbacks or the mountains of profits taken out of the economy. Too bad. But four days later, he’d had the word from the election’ public relations department, and PR was. shouting: “think about your image.” With food prices alone up 19% over a year ago, Allmand announced he was “studying”, “looking”, “proposing,” and thinking about “alternatives to protein”. Why not alternatives to people? But then who would do the work that creates all the profits? The the prime minister told some top boardroom types it would be “prefera- ble” if they “kept in mind” the impor- tance of “satisfying the consumer with lower prices rather than the share- holder with high dividends.” Well, he . did say it gently and he came right back with a blast about excessive wage settle- ments being the real cause of inflation. “But what could he do? What’s PR for the workers is poison for the profiteers. According to the big business press, Allmand “declares price war on food.” That we'll believe when we see it. Trudeau shakes his finger at the profit gluttons while planting his boot on the necks of the working class. Yet elections are coming, and workers are being asked to lapse into brainlessness and to choose between the anti-labor Tories and the anti-labor Liberals. Against this two-party hoax, workers need the unity of all their own forces, trade union and political, to conduct a. winning fight on both the economic and the political fronts — in the battle against high prices and profits, and fora ' progressive majority — including Communists — in parliament. The “concern” by the politicians of the corporate elite will disappear with the rest of the PR charade, but the struggle of the working class will go on. It needs a mighty foundation. Plan strategy for Canada For several decades United States corporations, many .of them multi- - nationals, have been taking over Cana- da’s fesources.and productive capacity, and imposing the U.S. “way of life” on Canadians. The result has been fat profits, and control of the Canadian economy and ‘trade by a foreign power. In this the sell-out artists of the capitalist class in this country have been ready accomplices, with a hand held out for their share. Today U.S. and other foreign take-overs go on under the benign eye of the so-called Foreign Investment Review Borad, which acts,. not as a_ protector of Canadian sovereignty, but as a traffic manager for U.S. control. At the same time successive capitalist governments have tied Canadian trade to the USA and to U.S. dictates in more distant trade. Canada’s ties to the U.S. war chariot commit us to NORAD, NATO and an ever-escalating arms budget. ~ What is called for is an economic and trade strategy based on Canadian sovereignty and independent develop- ment, on withdrawal from NATO. Sound and practical measures for such a strategy have been advanced in docu- ments of the Communist’Party of Cana- _ da, such as the recently-published, “Un- ite in Defénce: of Peace, Democratic Rights and Living Standards,” by Wil- liam Kashtan. In his Budget of Nov. 16, 1978, | Finance Minister Chretien admitted “it will be hard for us to reduce the slack in our economy,” because of our ties to the “USA. Now comes a rush of bad news from the USA. Washington’s guns before butter program.is threatening the social structures of that country, and are spilling over the border to coalesce with Ottawa’s similar program. Carter sees “the corrosive effect of inflation” eating away U.S. society. Hard evidence shows the armaments industry as the chief creator of inflation, and the resulting plunge in living standards. It. boils down to a sensible choice, obvious to millions across Canada: Normal trade and normal relations with our southern neighbor, yes. But being hitched to the U.S. war chariot and the resulting rot in its society, no. The more that Canadian workers see it that way, the less can they afford to sit back and expect capitalist governments to turn into patriots or champions of the work- ing class. The bad news pouring over the. border like a polluted waterfall carries a message to workers here to unite and take a grip on their own future by fighting the policies of big business and big business government. PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FEBRUARY 9, 1979—Page 3 speymepremsrer 0