Gouges and giveaways

. )CEMBER 15 is the date set for
the Rossland-Trail provincial
Yelection to fill the seat held since
1952 by Robert E. Sommers, who
how stands convicted of bribery and
“Onspiracy while lands and forests
Minister in the Social’ Credit gov-
*nment,
A lot of public pressure was re-
(uired to compel Attorney-General
bert Bonner to concede such an
lection. Having utilized his high
Office since December of 1955 to
flay bringing his ex-ministerial col-
fague to justice, the province’s
| Shief law enforcement minister and

IS government would have prefer-
| ted more delay in the testing of
| Pubic sentiment on the hustings.
~ This byelection has a special sig-
Mificance, It will be a sort of “little”
Provincial election. Not the con-
Victed conspirator Sommers, but the

cted administration of Bennett
‘nd Bonner will be on trial.

Was to be expected, the Con-
*tvatives and Liberals are whoop-
ig it up for “clean” government.
The Scandals of the utterly corrupt

Bride - Bowser government, to

ich the Bennett-Bonner govern-
Ment can best be likened, are now
ar in the past and the Conserva-
lWes are happy to have them for-
8etten, But for the Liberals, the
“andal of Vancouver Police Chief

alter Mulligan, who was part of

tit political machine, is still a
_ Tecent and, with Bonner’s conniv-
‘Nee, unresolved affair.

Or the electorate of Rossland-
tail in particular, as well as the
People generally, to exchange a
®ry or Liberal for a Social Credit-
S Would be jumping out of the fry-
"§ pan into the fire, leaving the
Patties of big’ business and monop-

Y giveaways still in control.
This byelection provides a splendid
*PPortunity to initiate a new poli-
ral alternative to the old-line servi-
ve of monopoly; an opportunity
es. Orge, even with limited time, a
"hited farmer-labor-people’s move-

| ent, not through a CCF “go.it-

~~ She” policy as labor’s “political
ao but through a broad concen-
"ation of trade unions, farm or-

Pacific Tribune

Phone MUtual -5-5288
18, Editor — TOM McEWEN
MNaging Editor — HAL GRIFFIN
Published weekly at
Room 6 — 426 Main Street
Vancouver 4, B.C.

Subscription Rates:
One Year: $4.00
Six Months: $2.25
% anadian and Commonwealth
yp uttries (except Australia): $4.00
a, year. Australia, United States
all other countries: $5.00 one
year.

ganizations, cooperatives and other
progressive groups of people, de-
termined on one_ objective — that
Rossland-Trail will be won for the
working people.

In this united people’s alternative
the CCF can play a decisive role—
for victory or defeat. To insist, as
its right-wing leaders do, that it
alone is the answer, and to ex-
clude unions like Mine-Mill and
others from playing their full part
in the big political job of sweeping
out the Socreds and their Liberal-
Tory twins, is to court defeat for
labor in Rossland-Trail on Decem-
ber 15. At this late date, it should
be obvious to all working men and
women, that only by a maximum of
labor-farmer-people’s unity at the
polls, can the attacks upon labor,
the political trickery, double-cross-
ing and corruption of Socred, Tory
or Liberal rule be ended.

Such a victory for a united peo-
ple’s movement in Rossland-Trail
would be an inspiration to the
working people of the whole coun-
try; a united “political arm” de-
livering a first decisive blow.

4

pe TEEN cents please,” the bus
driver said to the commuter
last Monday. “The fare has gone

up.”

The Public Utilities Commission
has given the B.C. Electric the nod
for another two-cent fare increase
and the B.C. Electric has lost no
time in reaching into the pockets
and purses of the public, leaving
the bus drivers to take the “beefs.”
Wages must not rise but profits
must be maintained at maximum
levels.

Meanwhile, in preparation for
bigger and better holdups, the B.C.
Electric is getting set to become a

partner in the Wenner-Gren hydro
deal now being promoted by the
Bennett government as a great
“northern development;” a giveaway
which will provide a foreign and
home-grown monopoly with a land
area of rich natural resources al-
most equal to half the province.
The Bennett government’s promo-

tion of the Wenner-Gren-B.C. Elec-

Comment |

Rossland-T rail byelection

tric grab, misnamed “development,”
solves yet another Socred problem;
the stalling of Columbia River
power development under public
ownership “until 1980 or later.”

Before that time U.S. power in-
terests, scheming to control Colum-
bia River power potential, hope to
have achieved their ends.

It was hardly to be expected that
the B.C. Electric, the great mon-
opoly whose corrupting influence
reaches into every level of govern-
ment and whose huge profits are
derived entirely from its strangle-
hold upon the power resources of
this province, would ‘allow a rival
to muscle in on its territory. But a
joint exploitation of the public is
something else.

The latest fare gouge, the high
rates charged for electricity and
gas, are only a foretaste of gouges
to come if Wenner-Gren-BCE de-
velopment is substituted for public
power.

Tom
McEwen;

ISTORIANS usually fall into
H two main categories: those
assigned the job of making his-
tory conform with the status quo,
and those who painstakingly
search the record in order to pre-
sent the real facts.

Hal Griffin belongs to the sec-
ond category. When he set out to
write British Columbia: The Peo-
ple’s Early Story as a contribu-
tion to British Columbia’s cen-
tenary, he lacked many of the
essentials required for a full
rounded-out historical presenta-
tion of the early life and times of
this banner province.

Hal had no reshearch teams, no
money, very limited time from
official duties, and damn little en-

couragement from any quarter,
and least of all from official cen-
tennial authorities who were as
busy as beavers spending thous-
ands of dollars in an effort to
transform “history” into a profit-
able tourist attraction.

Throughout this historic year I
have burned a lot of midnight oii
reading the “historical” record as
produced by official centennial

authority. Much of it makes for
good reading, but it has little re-
semblance to history, either fac-
tunally or objectively. My guess
is that the centennial “historian”
who took on the job (for a price)
of excluding labor and the people
generally from his literary ef-
forts, won’t rate very high in the
coming century, and least of all
as a historian.

It is in this respect that Brit-
ish Columbia: The People’s Early
Story holds a special significance.
It is a meticulously factual docu-
mentation of events — and the
people who made them — in the
early days of our province, from
which our*great democratic and
progressive traditiéns had their
birth.

If this were a review of such
a historical work one might say,
“Why didn’t the author include
so and so?” or, “Why did he dedi-
cate so much space in a limited
work to something else?”

Knowing the conditions and.
limitations (and obstructions)
under which this worthwhile job
was accomplished, such questions
are superficial. The -prime im-
portance of Hal Griffin’s book is
the outstanding fact that in this
centennial year, it already stands
out as the only authentic’ history
produced, spanning the stirring

years of the people between 1858
and 1958.

British Columbia: The People’s
Early Story is Marxist dialetics
applied to the past, and serving
as a guide to the future. In the
long struggle for true democracy,
progress and peace, a segment of
our society may bury an Amor
De Cosmos and hope to forget
him. But the dynamics of a peo-
ple’s history won’t.

In that lies the-great value of
Hal Griffin’s: work, that he takes
the strivings and aspirations of
the people in the capitalist past
and present and projects their
fulfilment in the socialist future.
It sh6ws the people as the makers
of history, and records their
struggles as milestones in the
building of a rich and beautiful
province, the centenary of which
illustrates one fundamental fact
—that the people who built it
have not enjoyed the vast wealth
they have created — but in the
century ahead, will.

It is conceivable too, that when
British Columbia’s 200th anni-
versary is celebrated in 2058
(when few of us expect to be
around) the historian seeking the
facts important to-a socialist soc-
iety will refer to The People’s
Early Story.

There at least he will find what
he seeks about the people’s strug-
gles — the facts that cannot be

--found in the superficial centen-

nal “histories.”

November 14, 1958 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 5