The Canadian Welfare Council
claims that in terms of rent
levels, vacancy rates, and mort-
gage interest rates, housing con-
ditions have deteriorated since
1968.

The rent index in the Consum-
er Price Index increased by 5.5
points in 1968-69, compared with
3.5 in 1967 and 4.7 in 1967-68.

» Vacancy rates in some big cities
have dropped since 1968, with
Montreal the only city consider-
ed to have anything approaching
a reasonable vacancy rate. This
situation, claims the Council, is
driving rents up at an unparallel-
ed rate.

The February 1970 interest
rate on National Housing Act
loans is 10.25%—indicating a
continuing shortage in housing.

In 1969 slightly more than
200,000 units were started, but
Central Mortgage and Housing
claims that “a program as high
even as 250,000 units a year
would not create a_ sufficent
stock within five years to bring
an end to overcrowding, doubl-
ing up, and the continued use of
deficient dwellings.”

During the first quarter of
1970, an annual rate of only
160,000 starts was-maintained.

Not since World War II have
Canadians found it so difficult
to secure decent housing within
their means.”

The Canadian Welfare Coun-
cil claims: “This is a situation
which calls for immediate atten-
tion and determined action by all
governments and_ responsible
citizens.”

As long ago as 1968, the Can-

adian Conference on Housing °

declared that all Canadians have
the right to be adequately
housed, whether they can afford
it or not. The Conference point-
ed out that housing had at that
time become an emergency for
people of low income, and an in-
creasingly serious problem for
those with middle incomes.

The Canadian Welfare Council
is calling for new government
subsidy programs which assist
low income people; a rent sup-
plement program for low-income
residents of non-profit and co-op-
erative housing; and subsidized
interest rates to support home
ownership for low income fami-
lies.

The Vancouver and District
Labor Council makes a compar-
ison of costs in housing in B.C. A
standard bungalow that cost $16,
734 for cash in 1959 cost $27,100
in 1969. Including mortgage in-
terest, the same bungalow would
cost $28,559 in 1959, and $54,939

-in 1969.

Wages are blamed for this.
However, the brochure put . out
by the Vancouver Labor Council
points out that as a proportion
of the cost, wages should only
account for a change of little

more than $1,000:

1959 1969

Wages $2,516 $3,847

Land 3,630 10,000
Materials, services

and profit 10,588 13,253

INTEREST. 11,825 27,839

Thus interest accounts for

50.7% of the cost of a bungalow,
materials for 20.1%, land for
18.2% and on site labor 7%, mis-
cellaneous 4%. Labor, as a pro-
portion of total costs on a mort-
gaged bungaiow has_ dropped
from 8.8% in 1959 to 7% in 1969.
Few people realize how much
interest they are paying on a
10% mortgage. On a $20,000
25-year mortgage, it amounts to
$112.24 per month. Since the
cost of land and the interest now
account for 68.9% of the cost of
a-house, the urgency of state in-
tervention to provide the funds
at subsidized rates, and to na-
tionalize all land is apparent.

‘Justice’ in Chicago

What they term contempt

The easy way to dispose of .
the Chicago 7 trial is to blame
the judge and the defendants
equally for the disorder. This is
what most editors have done.
Rnt a wely. of the “tempt ci-
tus s that it was not
a1 se Tifth week of the trial
that disruptive protest began.
This was when Bobby Seale’s
effort to represent himself — as
he had a legal right to do — cul-
minated in his being bound and
gagged and then sentenced to
four years for contempt, while
his case was severed for separ-
ate trial. (A week after Judge
Hoffman gave a lawyer a 6-
week delay for a Caribbean va-
cation, he refused Seale’s attor-
ney, Charles Garry, a 7-week
delay to recover from an opera-
tion.)

Until the transcript is avail-
able, the place to study these
citations is in the Chicago Tri-
bune which printed a full list
Feb. 16. Except for the refusals
to rise, all carry the dates, a
description and the _ sentence.
The refusals to rise occurred on
Oct. 28, 29, and 30 in the fifth
week of the trial. Of the 121
contempts for which the remain-
ing seven defendants were cit-
ed, only four were dated during
the first four weeks. These were
minor. The first, on Sept. 26,
was against Abbie Hoffman for
blowing a kiss to one of the
jurors (1 day). The second, on

Soe oR ME :
MORE ABOUT THOSE
INFLATION. AND. .

HOUSING PROBLEMS, v4

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, ‘MAY 15, 1970—Page 10

BOBBY SEALE

Oct. 1, was against Rennie Davis
for being 20 minutes late and
presenting a birthday cake to
Seale.

Even the usually irrepressible
Jerry Rubin was not cited for
contempt until Oct. 30 when he
protested the gagging of Seale.
Tom Hayden’s first two counts
were on Oct. 29 for “making re-
marks” and on Oct. 30 for
“making speech in defense
of Seale.” Rennie Davis’s sec-
ond offense did not occur un-
til Nov. 26 and it was for asking
the judge, “Why don’t you gag
all of us?” Until Dellinger was
cited for “shouting support of
Bobby Seale’”’ on Oct. 25, his of-
fenses were minor: calling the
judge “Mr.” in an argument Oct.
15 (6 months!) and for sarcastic

CARTOON: PRAIRIE FIRE

remarks to a witness Oct. 16 (1
month). The first offense of John
Froines was laughing at a wit-
ness (1 month) on Oct. 28 and
Lee Weiner for refusing to rise
that same day. Of the 95 dated
contempts in the Chicago Tri-
bune, more than half (53) oc-
curred in the last two months
of this 5-month trial. If it turned
toward the end into guerrilla
theatre, the producer was Julius
Hoffman.

The: defense began on the as-
sumption that it could expose

_ the hollowness of the charges in

an open trial. The defendants
were veterans of the civil rights
movement and were still influ-
enced by the fact that then their
only hope lay in the courts. The
gifted and thoughtful Tom Hay-
den dominated the preparations
for the trial and they were pain-
staking. The disorder was not a
plot but the result of their frus-
trating inability day-after-day
to get the evidence they had
gathered into the record. (The
outstanding example, of course,
was the Judge’s refusal to hear
former Attorney General Ram-
sey Clark testify that the Jus-
tice Dept. warned Mayor Daley
not to provoke trouble by refus-
ing the demonstrators a permit.)
The trial itself turned defend-
ants and counsel into revolu-
tionaries,

I. F. Stone’s Bi Weekly

Workers’ action needél
to change U.S. policy

WINNIPEG — “‘Fundamental
to Leninism, to: the Party which
he forged and-the state which
he in the first place created, is
the analysis of and the struggle
against imperialism,” declared
Dr. Herbert Aptheker, Director
of the American Institute of
Marxist Science, to an audience
of more than 300 gathered in
the Playhouse Theater to ob-
serve the Lenin centenary.

“The theory and practice of
Marxism-Leninism”, he pointed
out, “strikes at the heart of ma-
terial traditions by placing the
elimination of the private own-
ership of the means of produc-
tion. It strikes at the heart of
political traditions by insisting
that those who work and create
are to be those in whom is vest-
ed political power. It strikes at
the heart of intellectual tradi-
tions by insisting that elitism is
pernicious and that this applies
to all forms of elitism — rich
over poor, men over women,
particular nationalities over oth-
ers, or particular ethnic groups
over others. This is why Marx-
ism-Leninism is the most thor-
oughly revolutionary outlook
and practice in all history.

“Lenin was the first to con-

’ sistently and truly demonstrate

the organic connection between
the struggle for national libera-
tion and against. racist oppres-
sion and the struggle for social-
ism. The Soviet Union has made
possible a new stage in the
struggle of liberation. Castro
has one thing. Marti did not
have . . . the Soviet Union. The
level of. the present national
liberation movement depends
decisively upon the existence of
the U.S.S.R.”

With special reference to the
U.S.A. Dr. Aptheker quoted
Lenin to the effect: that when
capitalism moves into its final
stage, imperialism, it is charac-

terized by “political reaction all -

along the line.” It is a system
which, in Lenin’s words, is “rot-
ting alive.” ‘Politically the cul-
mination of such reaction is fas-
cism; ideologically the rotting
process reflects itself in the ex-
plicit repudiation of reason and

the eclipse of science. Both ten-

dencies are far advanced in my
country.” -

“But also steadily advancing
in my country is the resistance
to the rotting and the moribund
society .. . The peace movement
has the support at one level or
another of the majority of the
American people. There is no
question about that at all. There

has never been anything like »

- this in the history of the

DR. H. APTHEKER

united |

States, where a considerable a‘ 3
jority of the people reject oe
policies of the governs
the U.S. and most notably ©
wars it has been waging in

“But much remains 12
done, particularly amongs
labor component. We ca
five to six hundred thou ‘.
marchers coming to Was ey
ton, and that is important. io
if we could get the produc! ef
of automobiles stopped for ®
week in Detroit, it woul
more effective. When Wwé& ;
that kind of confrontation, as)
power of the working .© ;
which keeps society aliv® al
will decisively change not °
the foreign policy of the, unit th
States. And we are moving ©
way.”

‘Good Start
ae §

The Lenin centenary ™
was sponsored by the
Bookshop and presided 0 at
Andrew Robertson, NDP ‘Me ly.
Councillor. Professor Ken #8
of the University of Brando?
so spoke, dealing specific!
with Lenin’s theory of impe™
ism. He prefaced his oa
declaring that being a mé
of the NDP it is sometimes ¥ ia
difficult to see what the ee
ence of Lenin is within hos
party where ‘“‘to be even not ee
tile to Lenin. seems to b@~ |
ceptional.”

“We have a long nistorel
tradition of radical th0P"i,
which we must recaptufé le
this country. We must SU
ment it by looking to othe! “jy
ditions which played a seo
our development. And it $ fi
to me that Lenin’s theory %
perialism is a good plas
start in its enrichment.’

3