ee | -.down five coal mines Breton,” thereby throwing an ad- Open the door, Tom MAxoR Tom Alsbury and the } city’s Board of Administration decision to hold its meetings in secret has boomeranged on its pro- moters, and rightly so. ‘One of the worst features of modern big business government today (and at all levels) is the ~ “mahogany-backroom” method of doing business; of cooking up political deals, then facing the pub- lic with a ‘fait accompli,’ whether #t be an increase in the mill rate, a mew car for the mayor, or a natural tesoutces giveaway to a big mon- 'oply. At municipal level the prac- tice is most reprehensible. _ The specious arguments advanced by Mayor Alsbury in support of board secrecy just won’t stand up. Civic business is always most ex- - peditiously carried out in the in- terests of all the citizens, when the © public and press have free access ‘and are’ fully informed and able to voice their opinions on any given issue. While some of the board’s mem- Contrast ! ° eerie WEEK the Dominion Steel and Coal Company (Dosco) Siuntly announced it was “closing in Cape ditional 4,000 Nova Scotia miners ‘and their families into Canada’s jobless army. .“INo markets, no profits,” say . Bosco, Last week too, Nikita Khrushchev told the 21st Congress of the Com- mumist Party of the Soviet Union (among other important things), ‘that the new Seven-Year Plan re- quited a vast expansion of steel md coal, and that new thousands cf workers would be required to master these new objectives of soc- ialist production. To. put .it mildly, the contrast is staggering. With monopoly at the. controls, “no markets, no . profits,’ no jobs. Under socialism an_expanding market, rising: living © and cultural standards, no unem- . ployment, and the people reap the profits. Who said “socialism won’t work?” Pacific Tribune Phone MUtual 5-5288 Editor — TOM McEWEN Managing Editor — BERT WHYTE Published weekly at Room 6 — 426 Main Street Vancouver 4, B.C. Subscription Rates: One Year: $4.00 Six Months: $2.25 Canadian and Commonwealth countries (except Australia): $4.00 ‘one year. Australia, United States and all other countries: $5.00 one . year. vd bers appear to be getting somewhat lukewarm on their secrecy ruling, Mayor Tom Alsbury, with charcter- istic mulishness, lectures the public and those who disagree with him in the press and elesewhere, much as he would lecture a group of Grade 1 youngsters who have commited some minor breach of school be- haviour. In the cla’s room this may be quite proper, but in the mayoralty chair it is a symptom of something which doesn’t belong there, and which the public does not and will not approve. Despite Mayor Alsbury’s homilies addressed to Alderman Evelyn Caldwell (Penny Wise) and other critics on how well Vancouver’s jobless hundreds are “sheltered” under the mayoral wing, we feel reasonably sure that in reopening the administration board’s door to the public, the danger of the “Krem- lin” getting in (or wanting to get in) is about as remote as Mayor Alsbury seems to be from public opinion on backroom strategy! Better open the door Mayor Als- bury — before the ratepayers take it off the hinges! Discipline the sabo teur 0% OF THE perennial argu- ments advanced by Chambers of Commerce and other employer organizations in their attempts to put a dog-collar on labor, is that strikes are inimical to the “public welfare.” Last week no less a person than James Muir, president of the Royal Bank of Canada, put the finger squarely on those people (and their cold war policies) who stand in the way of “public welfare.” Reiterating his views on the ur- gent need for Canadian’- Chinese trade, the Royal Bank president outlined three main points which all sensible Canadians readily agree with. He described our “strategic goods” list, as laid down by Wash- ington and slavishly followed by Liberal and Tory governments alike, as being “ridiculous.” He ~ urged Canadian businessmen to go to China and begin trade deals; and he declared that “corporations that refused to trade under condi- tions advantageous to Canada” should be disciplined. In this he could have added the Diefenbaker government, plus a hard-core Tory falange of indu trial tycoons (including the Alum num Company of Canada), whe sabotage of Canada’s great poli tial markets in China. and ol countries of Asia and the ¥: world, not only calls for dis pline,” but a complete break cold war policies dictated by. Wash itgton; policies which, for the | ‘decade, have been and are hight inimical of the public welfare this country. a Muir repeated what this pap has stated on numerous occasioh in pressing the need for nm Canadian-Chinese trade and matic relations: “That the fitst sideration is the people who lt here and their livelihood.” E Thus instead of lecturing 4 branding labor as a threat to , public welfare, employers’ org tions and their subservient govem ments in Ottawa and Victor should look into the mirror up by oné of their own kind — see who really endangers the p lic welfare by the deliberate : tege of markets, trade and jobs! Tom ~ McEwen, J PPE time has come, the Wal- T rus said, To talk of many things © Of shoes, and ships, and sealing wax, And cabbages and kings.” It sure has. While the Socialist world, and first and foremost the Soviet Union chalks up new achievements and vast new per- spectives for human wellbeing, we of the “free West” sink deep- er in a capitalist morass of eco- nomic crisis and H-bomb “brink- manship.” It’s certainly time for a change; that is, a real change. * for a St. Laurent or a Bennett for another piebald politician from the same Augean stables, but for the people of factory, farm, school and laboratory to “take over,” Look at it this way.-.B.C. has a great lumber industry. So great indeed that H. R. MacMillan e Not a swapping of a Diefenbaker © pockets over $8 million profit for the last three months in 1958, while hundreds of jobless lumber workers wonder where their next meal is coming from — the .charity soup kitchen or Diefen- baker “promises.” Does any mill worker, faller or bucker, high-rigger, cold- decker, cat-man or whistle punk require a MacMillan, a Zeller- bach, a Weyerhauser or what have you, to show him “how” to do his job? Not on your life. The workers, in lumber and in all else, supply both the muscle and the know- how. Harold Pritchett was tell- ing me the other day of a boss who hung up a notice in the mill indicating some change in ‘plant operation, and signed it “The Brain.” : We'd hazard a guess that any six lumber workers now pound- ing the skidroad in jobless fu- tility, could produce more brains in running B.C.’s lumber in- dustry for the general wellbeing of the country than any score of top brass executives in the plush offices of the lumber trust. What goes for Jumber can ap- ply in all fields of production. Do hard rock or coal miners require a boss, often resident in New York, London, Ottawa or else- where, to tell them how to dig and process rich ores, coal or other minerals? The old “labor needs capital’ s gag is played out. With hard rock and coal miners digging for their own class, there would be much — less “blood on the coal” and ore; _ more in the miners’ pockets and__ on their tables; limitless markets for the products of their toil, and not a jobless worker on a “ghost” town anywhere — not even a ghost with a “suspended sentence” — like, Britannia. With the growing impact of a socialist world around them, workers are beginning to think,~ and “thinking” workers is always bad medicine for the exploiters and their “promising” politicians. The idea of “fix-it-yourself” in- stead of leaving it to a Diefen- © baker or a Bennett is catching on, The “feel’’”’ of socialism is in the air, and the lengthening lines of jobless workers, subsisting ~ on the stagnating promises of a capitalist “prosperity just around the corner” sharpens its tang. “If the Russians and Chinese can do it” say these workers, “why not us?” A very good, and very time. ly question. Why not? c A good long look at this question by any group of work- ers in any industry anywhere in Canada, will produce an almost unanimous opinion: “Sure, why not? We work for a boss, when it is “profitable” for him that we do work. Why not try working for ourselves for a change?” February 6, ‘1959 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PA