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Continued from page !

Bennett gov’t unmasked by Briggs

touched what must be, even
for him, a new low in dirty
tactics.

In thinly - veiled’ language,
he has called his critic, ex-
fneral manager of the B.C.
Power Commission; H. Lee
Briggs, insane. “The whole
tone of his statement,” says
Tauer, “indicates he is in a
State of emotional disintegra-
tion,” and again, “Mr. Briggs
‘Sin an emotional state in
Which he is not accountable
for the things he says.”
Needless to say, this name-
falling is the dirty-little-boy
lactic of a person caught with-
%Ut a valid argument. Grauer
those to sling mud_ rather

than to argue the merits of

tiggs’ case for the simple

Nason that Briggs had him

fad to rights with unassail-

able facts. ;
| Those facts are neither new
| Ror secret. For the most part,
| ‘Rey are on the public record
Md available to any citizen
Who wishes to check their
| *Uthenticity. What is new is
at a public figure of Briggs’
Stature and reputation has had
€ courage to say these things
Publicly, even at the cost of
his $25,000 a year job.

at are the facts that have

Povoked Grauer to such an
xtreme?

First is .Briggs’ demonstra-
lion that the B.C. Electric,
. ile constantly telling the
public that it is limited to a

te Percent return, has ac-
Nally averaged 19 percent.

Briggs shows this by the in-
rect method of indicating
a the market has capital-
“€d the earnings of the com-
@hy at a figure which would
oduce that rate on the real
Nvestment.

Grauer claims this method
ae “an almost unbeliev-
—€ lack of acquaintance with
Mancial matters.”

The facts however, are just
‘ Briggs stated them. B.C.
®ctric earnings are such
aM investors today are glad
Pay $40 for common shares
Itch represent an _ invest-
Ment of only $16 in the com-
haw Indeed, one large share-
€r has twice appeared at
Ublic Utilities Commission
anes to protest against
the further building up of
: fabulous profits that he
S already enjoyed.
ee process by which the
‘ Cited 61%4 percent allowed
Wn is used as a smokescreen
¥ real earnings of 15 percent
x More was thoroughly ana-
tie and exposed in a brief
pod by the Civic Reform
By ttion in 1951, but totally
the red by the daily press at
time. More recently, it

has been exposed in the re-
port of the Borden Commis-
sion under the fancy name
“leverage.”

As to the truth of the al-
legation, any citizen can satis-
fy himself by consulting the
financial pages of the paper,
or by asking a broker, that
the common stock of the B.C.
Power Corporation was sold
to the public at a net price
of $16.02%, and that last year’s
dividends amounted to $1.40
per share.

Obviously, dividends of 8%
percent cannot be paid out of
earnings of 64 percent.

Next is Briggs’ statement
that in spite of enormous cost
advantages, the B.C. Electric
charges higher rates for elec-
tricity than the B.C. Power
Commission. He might have
added, as the Civic Reform
Association has repeatedly
stressed in briefs and leaflets,
that BCE rates are more than
twice as high as those of pub-
licly owned utilities in Ont-
ario, Quebec and Manitoba.

Grauer tries to refute this
by asserting that the average
consumption pér customer of
the B.C. Power Commission
is higher than that of the B.C.
Electric, implying that this
makes the commission’s costs
lower.

This is ridiculous, since the
commission has had to build
transmission lines and facili-
ties over a large part of the
province in order to service a
small number of customers,
which the BCE has scores of
thousands of customers con-
centrated in a few square
miles in Vancouver and Vic-
toria.

In situations where the B.C.
Power Cornmission did have
an advantage, such as at
Powell River, the B.C. Elec-
tric simply exercised its in-
fluence with the Socred gov-
ernment to take the territory
from the commission. *

It is significant that in re-
gard to the third point raised
by Briggs, namely the B.C.
Electric’s lavish spending,
Grauer attempts to answer
only half the question.

He admits and defends the
company’s policy of making
large donations to charity and
education but is totally silent
on the matter of lavish’ adver-
tising, expense accounts, poli-
tical contributions and “gold
plated monuments.” His sil-
ence on these charges is in-
deed eloquent.

Not the least interesting
part of the interchange is
Briggs’ charge that the Pub-
lice Utilities Commission is in-
effective. By contrast, Grauer
blandly uses the PUC as the

figleaf for the company’s
policies. Here is what he says:
says:

“The present chairman is

‘Dr. Henry Angus, who was

for years-head of the depart-
ment of economics and poli-
tical science at the university
and dean of its graduate
school. I think that Mr. Briggs’
outburst can be disposed of
for most people by saying that
the regulatory commission
headed by people of this cali-
bre can be counted on to look
after the public interest.”

It was precisely to permit
Grauer to make statements
such as this that a man of Dr.

Angus’ stature had to be
appointed chairman of the
PUC. His appointment was

made in 1955 when it became
obvious that the public could
no longer be taken in by the
comic opera performance of
his predecessor, Percy George.

Does Angus protect the pub-
lic interest? The federal gov-
ernment is evidently. not so

sure. It has recently appointed
a prosecutor to take action
against the same Angus and
his colleagues for operating
an illegal combine in the

~ Manitoba sugar industry.

The depredations of the
B.C. Electric are nothing new.
By its influence over one pro-
vincial government after an-
other, it has established mon-
copoly control over electricity,
transit and natural gas. By
appropriation of one part of
the public domain after an-
other, its assets have grown
in the past thirteen years from
about $75 million to over half
a billion.

This is comparatively small
potatoes beside what is now
obviously being planned. Frus-
trated by the fishing interests
from taking over the Fraser
River, and foreseeing diffi-
culty in competing with the
idea of public ownership in
development of the Columbia,
the BCE has entered into an
international conspiracy to

grab the Peace River and use
it as a means of bypassing
cheap power.

-Briggs in one of his state-
ments has etold something of
the vast wealth that is being
appropriated by the Wenner-
Gren deal. The Bennett gov-
ernment has _ hypocritically
pretended that this wealth is
to be developed by ‘‘demo-
cratic” Swedish, British and
Canadian capital.

Just how democratic this
combination is may be judged
from the fact that Wenner-
Gren himself was not allowed
in allied countries during the
war, on account of his Hit-
lerite sympathies. The largest
of the many assets with which
he emerged from that holo-
caust was the financial con-
trol of Krupps — a fine old
democratic firm, as most peo-
ple willremember. It’s an ap-

propriate company, however,
for such accomplished resource-
grabbers as the BCE.

‘NO BETTER GIFT
_ FOR A CENTENNIAL CHRISTMAS!

BRITISH COLUMBIA
The People’s Early Story

By HAROLD GRIFFIN

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November 21, 1958 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 7