Sales tax goes on over protest

The Coalition government’s me-
thoa of celebratung Canada Way
was to take another wnack at liv-
ing stanaards, with the provincial
sales tax going into erfect July 1.

Canadian Manutacturers’ Asso-
ciation delegates, heaued by T. G.
Norris, KC, sought trom tne cabi-|
net further exemptions from the
tax. Delegation was conspicuous as
being the only organization ap-
pearing which has not opposed the
tax as a whole.

“IT am convinced the impact on
the spender will scarcely be felt,”
said Tory Finance Minister Ans-
comb, who, with his Logana factory
in steady operation, is not faced
with the problem of the low-income
majority in scratching for cents let
alone dollars. :

Anscomb claimed that a worker
earning $175 monthly will pay $1.75
a month in sales tax. The Trade
Union Research bureau has proved
in the Pacific Tribune that such a
worker will pay over $2.50 a month,
or more than $30 a year. The gov-
ernment has admitted it will snatch
48 cents every month from old age
pensioners, but the same govern-
ment takes only $100,000 in stump-

. age in royalties from H. R. MacMil-
lan, who made over $7,000,000 last
year.

Proclamation has been accom-
panied by use of the taxpayers’
money for an intensive partisan

propaganda campaign that other-

ere

wise the old-line parties would have
had to pay for, a campaign aimed
at sugar-coating this most discrim-
inatory of all forms of taxa-
tion.

The government persists in call-
ing it “The Social Security and
Municipal Aid Tax,” although it
makes no provision for extending
social security measures already

in force and municipalities are

still getting the raw end of pro-
vincial-municipal financial deals.

There’s no doubt the tax will.
slow up business. Smal] retailers
are hopping mad at the additional
mass of red tape in which the sales
tax involves them.

“They want to make me into a
government agent, a lawyer and

.a stool-pigeon on my customers,”

one of them frothed when inter-
viewed by the Pacific Tribune. “A
man needs a book-keeper specially
to cope with this damn thing.”

His plight became plain from
study of the documents he'd receiy-
ed from the sales tax commissioner.

He now becomes an agent of
the crown to collect the tax from
his customers, for which he

Rush shows Young, Cameron
twisted poll results in Center

Claims advanced by Rod Young
(CCF, Vancouver Center) in his
maiden speech in the House of
Commons that LPP members voted
Tory in the recent byelection and
that two LPP provincial committee
members resigned in protest at al-
leged violation of national LPP
policy, were greeted with cheers by
“all parties’ in the House, includ-
ing Tories, Liberals and Social
Crediters, but were spiked by prov-
incial LPP officials as lies aimed
at disrupting the labor unity on
which election of a CCF govern-
ment depends.

Young conspicuously failed to re-
ply to the following telegram from
Nigel Morgan, LPP provincial lead-
er, which. was suppressed by the
same daily papers that had given
prominence to Young's claims:

“Press statements attributed to

you charging LPP supported
Vancouver Center Tory candid-
ate are viciously untruthful. No
resignations were received by our
provincial committee, nor do your
figures of the vote correspond
with the facts. We demand that
you produce evidence or publicly
retract.”

Maurice Rush, LPP provincial

Vanport victims storm council,
blame officials for disaster

More than 1,000 Vanport flood refugegees, many of them now living on partially

inundated Swan Island, stormed the city council here to dem

PORTLAND.

and immediate requisition of

hotel rooms and auto courts to house victims of the worst flood disaster ‘in the U.S.

They were led by

tor of the ‘'elephone Workers’ Dispatcher, Victor Todd,

labor attorney Irving Goodman, as
well as some 200 members of Hod
Carriers Local 296, the AFL union
whose membei's were most heavily
affected by the flood. : :

Other demands made by the com-
mittee included:

e@ Appropriation of funds for
the Vanport victims. @ Prior-
ity in employment to flood repair
work. @ A rent freeze as of ,
May 30 to prevent gouging by
landlords,

The flood refugees filled the
council chamber and stood in traf-
fic-blocking throngs on the street
Outside. The council’s only answer
to the request far help was to re-

fer the whole matter to the. Traf- &
fic Commission for discussion at};

some indefinite future date.
Republican Mayor Earl Riley
threatened to drive the flood vic-
tims out of the council chamber
when they dared to applaud Ela
Campbell, former Vanport teacher,
who branded the Housing Author
ity’s attempt to crowd the flood
Victims and their children into
“trailer ghettos” as something that
“cannot be hidden from the Ame-
rican public behind a Festival of
Roses.” That was a reference to
Portland’s annual festival which

Went on as usual this year although |"

it brought thousands of outsiders
in to fill hotel rooms desperately
needed by flood victims.

The Housing Authority, whose
notice to Vanport residents that
the dykes were safe is blamed by
Many for life and property loss
in the disaster, was appointed by
the mayor. Riley was overwhelm-
ingly defeated for re-election by
labor-backed Dorothy McCullough
Lee in the May primaries, but the
hew mayor does not take office
Until next year.

Meanwhile, persistent AFL in-
Quiry into the fate of union mem-
bers who lived in Vanport has forc-
€d the Red Cross to admit that its
list of unlocated persons is far from
complete,

Names of nine AFL carpenters
Were added to the list June 16. Oth-
er AFL unions listing members still

Unaccounted for include the boiler-
Makers with eight names and the

officers of the Citizens’ Disaster Committee including Bruce Bishop, edi-
Portland longshoreman, and _ local

painters with 16 names. The AFL
is setting up a master file in or-
der to check and double-check on
possible fatalities.

A similar check is under way by
CIO unions who had over 335 mem-
bers living in Vanport. The CIO
regional office is acting as co-or-
dinator for relief and rehabilitation
workw done by the Portland In-

dustrial Council, the CIO state
council and the Telephone Workers’
Organizing Committee. Contribu-
tions collected by the CIO will be
used among other things to make
down payments on furniture.

The, Laundry Workers Union
(AFL) sent a $1,000 donation to
its local here, which had some 100
members in Vanport.

After the floods

River at Portland, Ore. Locai

the fight for emergency

relief in flooded areas.

ere’s what is left of homes along the rampaging Columbia
AFL and CIO leaders are heading
housing measures and are organizing

organizer, stated that the LPP “did
nol take part” in Vancouver Center
byelection “not because of any
change in our policy of working
for the.election of CCF govern-
ments, but because the LPP could
not conscientiously ask the working
people in Center to back a person
of Young’s disruptive record in the
labor movement.” He pointed. to the
“fact that Young barely held the
CCF vote in a working class riding,
whereas O. BE. Jones increased the
vote of the CCF 59 percent in the
traditionally Tory riding of Yaie,”
as proving “that many thousands
of working people in Center felt
likewise.”

Of the two byelections the LPP
decided to place its full efforts into
the Yale campaign, Rush explained,
contending that “results have vin-
dicated our position,” and that
“Young’s false statements, which
seek to impugn the motives of the
LPP, stand exposed by our consis-
tent record of activities to unite
the people to win a _ progressive
government.”

When Colin Cameron, CCF past
president, publicly announced that

ceives three percent commission.
To do business, he has to forward
a 10-point registration ferm in
triplicate. He has 36 clauses of
the act to master, plus 48 pages
of regulations and instructions.

He must immediately place an
order stating how many farmers’
and fishermen’s exemption certifi-
cates he requires, how many resale
exemption tickets he requires, how
many tickets he requires at one
cent, three cents and five cents,
how many containers for tickets
he wants to buy at his expense,
and the number of additional copies
of the act, regulations and instruc-
tions, and tax table cards he wants.

Tickets have to be used where
there is no other form of receipt
itemizing the tax. <

Where there are exemptions the
vendor must personally satisfy him-
self as to their validity, or be held
responsible by the government for
an infraction of the act. In.. fact,
he is legally responsible for appli-
cation of the whole complex and
cumbersome machinery, and must
account to the government every
month for all sales and tax collec-
tions.

It’s some headache, and small
wonder that almost every little
Board of Trade and Retail Merch-
ants’ Association in the province
fought passage of the act.

It’s some headache, too, for the
little guy who has to pay—but not
aalf as bad as the headache ime
Coalition is sure to get when elec-
tion time comes round and all the
little guys hit by the tax get a
chance to catch up with its perpe-
trators.

“No discrimination — it taxes

he found Rush’s remarks about the
LPP’s unity fight “sidesplitting”,
and duplicated Young’s attempts to
falsify election returns, Rush re-
plied with this statement:

against the LPP, both Young and
Cameron have chosen to draw the
amazing conclwsion from two polls
in Center out of 124, that the LPP’
supported the Tories! And even the
figures from these polls are twisted
and dishonestly presented. Young
asserts, and Cameron supports him,
that poll 102A proves the LPP sup-
ported the Tories. Fortunately the
official figures are available for all
to see,

“In 1945 poll 102 was a single
poll. In 1948 the same poll was div-
ided into A and B. Young has used
the simple device of taking oniy
part of the vote—poll 102A—to ad-
vance his false statement. He con-
veniently leaves out B, but even the
resuits from half the poll provide
no substantiation for the asser-
tions. Here is the vote in poll 102
for 1945: Liberals 138, Progressive-
Conservatives 18, CCF 78, LPP 47.
Compare these with the recent
vote in poll 102A and B: Liberals
80, Progressive-Conservatives 15,
CCF 112. 1

“How is it possible on the basis
of these figures to defend the com-
pletely false assumption that the
LPP supported the Tories in the
Center byelection?

“Cameron repeats Young's false-
hood that LPP members resigned
because of instructions to vote
Tory. No resignations took Place
because no such instructions were
given. I challenge Cameron to
name even one member of the LPP
who resigned for the reason he
claims.

“Young and Cameron omit men-
tion of the excellent work done by
the LPP in Yale to help elect O. L.
Jones — to mention this would
weaken their “case” against labor
and people’s unity.

“The LPP will continue to urge
the people to unite at the polls for
the election of CCF governments
at Victoria and Ottawa because we
consider it in the best interests of
the nation to turn the old line par-

ties out of office.”

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JULY 2, 1948—PAGE 7

“In their attempt to make a case!

everybody equally,” the Coalition
claims.
Everybody will have an equal

\chance to throw out the Coalition
| too.

URGENT!

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Such Donations Thankfully
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Phone or Write DOLCE SMITH
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in honor of

EFFIE
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Wed., July 7th

At the home of MRS. J. COOK _
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Cor. 43rd & Victoria
Attendance Prize —
Musical Program —

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