ph rile early pioneering days of Canada,
ti lities were confined mainly to the
arty Tweedledee and Tweedledum
. Electioneering to win votes de-
aan 4 good deal on how much booze,
and oratorical entertainment the

Sontending Parties were able to give out. ©

n those days any Liberal or Tory

lection headquarters was the main
~ utte of attraction where the drinks
., mokes; always in ample supply,
© always “on the house.” Thus the
ng breath of partisan scandal, graft,
rther characteristic features of either

tplitica Party of the ruling caste, was “
ren

Well diluted with the more pun-

cn coma of good whiskey and cheap

m € party “machine” was kept

4 Clled and the police wagons oblig-

oy here away the more enthusiastic
debris which got over-oiled.

All this of course was regarded by
1, People as being strictly within the
Dodly “legal practices.” In: fact, a
&so¢i9 Portion of the electorate would

regarded as obsolete.

_tical oratory, goes much farther than

parts of this fair city reminded us that
the grand old institution of garnering
a few votes for a tankard of super-charg- ;
ed tiger juice was still far from being

The Pacific Tribune’s roving reporter,
making the round of a few of these
political thirst dispensaries, noted a
quiet “exclusiveness” from the old “wide
open” days. As though guided by some
unseen political freemasonry, a steady
trek of seedy-looking individuals up-
stairs to some quiet room. There the
furnishings are meagre—but effectively
eloquent and decisive!

Sas are not wanting that even
as the new St. Laurent govern-
ment takes office, the winds of eco-
nomic adversity are beginning to
blow hard from south of th
border.

First, the U.S. Congress has de-
cided to leave the U.S.-Canada Re-
ciprocal Trade Agreement Act “‘as
is,” with President Eisenhower
having full power to restrict Can-

~ adian imports to the US., if, as
and when he may feel that such
imports ‘‘hurt’’ the U.S. economy?
Canadian dairy products, grain and
other exports to the U.S. are ak
~ready being restricted, on the
grounds that they are “‘interfering
with U.S. agricultural programs.”

A few individuals sit around. Their
job is obviously to take care of the
thirsty “visitors,” with a few quiet hints
of where and how to vote. There is
nothing in the room to indicate where
or how a mountain of a few score
cases of beer got there; absolutely noth-
ing except, of course, a larger-than-life
portrait of Ralph Campney, Liberal as-
sociate minister of defense.

It is a hot day, but the trek continues,
and the beer tastes good. Some of the
boys observe that it is “a little like old
times,” if indeed a bit exclusive. In
the old days the “open-shop” election °
dispensary provided a lot of hilarity
with the drinks. Today it is strictly
business. There is an election to be won, ~
a “moral’ front to be maintained, a‘
vote to be garnered. And a gross of
beer, like the volume of old-line poli-

the “quality” beverages and cigars of

Wate their partisan loyalties with
congue and quantity of the booze
heratne” One of the key machine
Verne of the long-time-ago Roblin
l his €nt of Manitoba once unburden-
apenef to us with the statement

the rotgut the party is handing

iS, election is the best it can

I'm going to switch to the

the “Laurier era.” *

Unlike the rough-and tumble politican
of a bygone day, the modern Liberal
politico need only be identified in the
one-beer-one-vote emporium by having
his portrait adorn some beer baron’s
contribution to the preservation of our
“free democratic way of life.”

day have changed since those early

co The volume of ora- *

Paigns our present day election cam-
though, Increased tremendously, al-
iene? iD the opinion of many, the
» las definitely depreciated. News-
Advertising, political radio haran-
SPots” and “plugs” (running into
high ousaRds of dollars, the origin
‘eeret) ee always kept a close party
mel taken the place of the old-
““ittanked “canvasser” emerging
Barty headquarters to carry the
Oasi See” —and the promise of
: or the thirsty up at Number
evan return for their vote.

Mrs. Mona Morgan, LPP candidate in
Vancouver-Kingsway, charged that the
Liberals had padded the voters’ lists by

hundreds of recent immigrants who are

not even Canadian citizens. That we

can well believe.
‘ .

There is another form of padding the
lists which, if brought under close in-
vestigation, would produce a startling
insight into the manner of more than
one Liberal “victory.” In some of these
Vancouver hotels where the Liberal
party’s political machine supplied “free...
beer to a “free enterprise” populace,
lists of “guests” —- roomers, boarders,
residents and such like—were supplied
‘to enumerators. Of these it is known
that many have left Vancouver long ago
for points unknown—some even having
vacated this life, definitely and perman-
ently, but not the current voters’ list.

~~ With aly the modern changes that
ing N place in the process of ex-
Ma 4 N€ democratic prerogative. to
80vernment, never let it be
hive ae old-line parties of mon-_
iscarded these sterling “re-
Practices” of half-a-century

T th : Far be it from us to suggest that all
© .old-line parties the busi-

these “padded” people, the “quick and

Votes still takes prece- the dead” cast their votes for the Lib-

(“Ver how they are gotten erals. But these fener? See
: rogms with their pyramids of “

. ; beer, their business-looking staffs of

* ; “telegraphers” and their life-sized por-

traits of modern “saviors,” give off a.
I federal election campaign, strong odor of political corruption
eae of hotels along Van-

which, if not remedied, may asphyxiate
. ed a nation. It is worth looking into—as
: Skid Road and in other

we assess the election results. .

.

.
Se ou

Pacific TRIBUNE

Weekly at Room 6 - 426 Main Street, Vancouver 4, B.C.

Phone: MArine 5288

5 Tom McEwen, Editor — Hal Griffin, Associate Editor
Subscription Rates: :

Canada and British Commonwealth countries (except Austr
One Year $3.00 . . . Six Months $1.60

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One Year $4.00 . . . . . Six Months $2.50

by Union Printers Ltd., 550 Powell Street, Vancouver 4, B.C.
as. second class mail, Post Office Department, Ottawa

allowing the registration of scores of _

This, of course, is only a small
part of the “‘shape of things to

come’’ as the Yankee tariff and
exclusion wall is built up under
_ pressure from special interests. -

For Canada, with all its market
eggs in the Yankee basket, the out-

look is bleak, to say the least.

f Another major squeeze against
Canada comes from the U.S. oil
octopus. As a counter move to
the popular demand that Canadian
oil serve the needs of the Canadian
people through an All-Canada
pipeline from Alberta to the East-
ern provinces, the U.S. Federal
Power Commission is pressing for
acceptance of its application on be-
half of a U.S. company to pipe 22

- billion cubic feet of gas annually |

into the province of Ontario.
Should the U.S. oil barons be suc: -
cessful in grabbing the Toronto
market, the prospect for an All
Canada pipeline from Alberta to

The Yankees put
the squeeze on Canada

the East becomes dim indeed.

Theres no end to this Yankee
squeeze play upon Canadian econ-
omy. Having (at U.S. insistence)
successfully “‘liquidated’’ the Can-
adian Seamen’s Union and scuttled
Canada’s merchant marine during
its last term in power, the St. Lau-
rent government now faces the
probability of seeing the bulk of its
Great Lakes shipping trade pass to

- ships of foreign registry. As the

August 8 issue of the Financial
Post puts it, “It’s all part of our
bigger problem; to set up and keep
an ocean fleet.’” Precisely! Having
scrapped our once proud merchant
marine, we are now faced with
foreign deepsea. shipping, under
U.S. control (if not registry),

_ Squeezing Canadian ships off the

Great Lakes!

Perhaps most unpalatable of all
is the squeeze upon Canada’s Hy-
drographic Survey department to
provide more ships and equipment
to meet the needs of surveying and
charting the great Ungava Penin-
sula—in order that the great iron
ore deposits of Ungava may be
safely delivered to U.S. blast fur-

naces!

Obviously the big squeeze from
the USS. is on, and, .as the desire
of the Canadian people for a new
national policy of peace and ‘in-
ternational goodwill gathers mo-
‘mentum, the John Foster Dulles
mentality will apply ‘the pincers”
to those governments which
thought they were buying a “‘part-
nership’ in cold-war “‘prosper-
ity,’ and instead wound up in the
gtip of a merciless contradiction. —

Now's the time to check

[" is one thing to be deprived of the —
right to vote by an unscrupulous pol-
jtieal machine. There the citizen has
cause for legitimate complaint and re- _
dress. It is Something else however to
“deprive oneself of the right to vote by
neglecting to register. Then the citizen
has no one to blame but him or herself.
Civie elections in British Columbia’s _
urban and rural municipalities are only
- four months away. The issues facing
the nation—peace, trade, jobs, health
- and social progress—reach right down —
to the municipal government level. It
is there the people feel the first impact
of restricted social services and pro-
. _ PACIFIC

~~ gress. “Tt is there the first victory to

Put Canada First can be decisively won.
All it requires is getting over the habit _
of being careless or negligent about ex-
ercising our dearly won democratic right

_ to vote.

municipal halls to find out whether or
not their names are on the voters lists.
Make a point of checking now, so that
Elections are still four months away,

but civic and municipal voters lists are

NE — AUGUST 14, 1953 — PAGE 5 __