Can’t manage on $14,000

Carl A. Lgenfritz (left), $70,000-a-year vice-president of U.S.
Steel, is seen here talking to Senator Millard Tydings (Dem., Mary-
land) after a U.S. Senate committee approved his appointment as

$14,000-a-year munitions board chairman.

lgenfritz is shaping up because

Senate opposition to
he will receive his full pay from

U.S. Steel while serving on the board. He complains that he can’t

live on $14,000 a year.

BCER admits charging
all traffic will bear

‘Admission that the BCElectric is charging transit rates as high

as’ the traffic will bear was made
Vice-president of the company. -

Mainwaring worded it differently.

last week by W. C. Mainwaring,

He told a Board of Trade

luncheon audience in Hotel Vancouver that many transit companies

have raised failes to the point
where “further increases would
Mean diminished rather than in-
creased income.” Then he pulled a
long face and announced sadly
that the transit business is a “sick
industry” and is “suffering from
financial anemia.” La

“From an earning standpoint, the
level of net: earnings (of transit
companies) in 1948 was 1.1° per-
cent,” said Mainwaring.

But the Trade Union Research
Bureau here, which has looked in-
~ to the company’s case for a perma-
nent fare hoist, reports:

“Much of the BCER’s case re-
volves around the matter of a ‘fair
return’, This was established by
the PUC in 1943 at 5.3 percent,
- which was arrived at by averaging
rates of interest paid by the com-
Pany in 1941 on various classes of
Capital. These were: bonds, 4% to
614 percent; preferred shares, 6
percent; and common shares, Th
Percent. From this was deducted
interest on the depreciation re-
serve. coe

“Since that time the company’s
entire funded debt has been re-
financed at lowe1! rates of interest.
The bonds now average 3.4 per-
Cent; the preferred stock is 4.2
percent on the average, and the
Common stock pays dividends of
6.4 percent.

“On the same formula by which
the Public Utilities Commission cal-
Culated the ‘fair return’ at 5.3 per-
Cent in 1941, it now works out to
just over 4 percent as the result
of the lower vates of interest. The
PUC continues, however, to allow

the company 5.3 percent and in
1948 refused to hold a hearing on
the fair return.

“On total capital of $180: million,

’

the 5.8 percent return obviously al-
lows the company about $2,000,000
more than the actual cost of money
as indicated by the 4 percent aver-
age referred to above. This is con-
firmed by the fact that, afte1 pay-
ing dividends, the company had ap-
proximately $1,000,000 of undistrib-
uted profits left over.

“In spite of that, the BCER
speaks of the need to increase
profits up to the 5.3 percent allow-
} ed. If it did so, the return to com-

es, would amount to roughly $4,000,-
000, or 12% percent.” ®

In the face of these figures, the
‘poor mouth” appiioach of BCER’'s
vice-president is not likely to im-
press the average Vancouver citi-
zen.

Copper miners
seek pay hoist

Copper miners in ,B.C. will seek
an 18 percent wage increase based
upon the present guaranteed wage
rate of $9 a day, in forthcoming

International Union of Mine, Mill
and Smelter Workers.

‘ Increases in the cost of living
during the past year, plus a re-
duction of wages of $1 a shift
through bonus losses, makes the
demand of 18 percent:a bare mini-
mum to bring wages up to decent
standards, a Mine-Mill conference
held in Britannia decided.

If .the wage recommendations
are ratified by the union member-
ship, locals 349 and 663 will jointly
submit the proposals to Granby
Consolidated and Britannia Min-
ing and Smelting companies on
October 2.

}

mon stock shareholders, after tax-|-

negotiations between operators and |.

LACK OF PLANNING SCORED

Burnaby residents
council instal

demand
incinerator He

BURNABY, B.C.

Burnaby’s municipal engineer has his mind set on a new dump site which, he assured councillors last

week, will last “‘at least a thousand years.”

But if residents of the Capitol Hill district have their way

he'll have to look elsewhere for a dump site with a more limited capacity because ,no one believes that even
Burnaby will still be dumping its garbage into ravines by the year 2949. In fact, the municipal engin-
eer’s proposal has touched off a lively demand for installation of a modern incinerator.

Last Sunday some 200 residents crowded into Capitol Hill Community Hall at a meeting presided
over by J. J. Moodie, chairman of Capitol Hill Ra‘epayers Association, to condemn the engineer's pro-

Scant help
for jobless

By MARK FRANK
—OTTAWA

Humphrey Mitchell's deputy labor |’

minister, A. A. MacNamara, in an
interview, strongly pooh-poohed all
suggestions that there was an un-
employment crisis developing in
the country.

Asked for comment on reports of
6,000 jobless in Sorel, Que. and
steady talk of unemployment | in
key Canadian centers, the minis-
ter boastingly remarked, “We're
very optimistic. We've never been
wrong yet.” Despite the tone of
the minister's comments, he earlier
noted that the “situation was being
very closely watched.”

MacNamara said further that

no action was being studied by
the government on the subject
of raising unemployment insur-
ance rates or providing for feder-
al relief for insured workers
whose benefits ran out. No mass
public works were being plan-
ned to meet continued layoffs,
according to the minister.

Chief of the unemployment in-
surance division, R. G. Barclay,
said that the proposal to up relief
when insurance ran out was dis-
cussed at the last Dominion-Pro-
vincial conference, but “blew up,”

when the conference collapsed.
The proposal then was to provide

85 percent of the amount being |

received by the insured person.

Beats polio

Among the millions of Can-
adian and American children who
returned to school last week,
Barbara Claudio, 11, was one of
the. happiest. Fully recovered
from a pelio attack, she is seen
here leaving the Sister (Kenny In-
stitute in Jersey City, N.J., with
her mother.

HARRY BALL

An incinerator would pay its
own way.

Need labor
at UBCM

VICTORIA, B.C.

The whole atmosphere at the
Union of B.C. Municipalities” con-
vention here last week was one of

conservation and showed the lack
of militant labor, farmer and pro-
gressive representation at the mun-
icipal level.

Progressive: motions to allow
schoo] teachers to sei've on muni-
cipal councils ,and civic employ-
ees directly employed by munici-
palities to serve on school boards,
were defeated.

A representative from the
B.C. Teachers’ Federation was
given a hearing, and tartly ob-
served: “You ask us to teach
democracy in our schools. Give
us the right to practice it.”

Delegates tried to 1ush through
a resolution calling for a change
in the Municipal Act which would
make aljl money awards brought
down under conciliation after Feb-
ruary 15 null and void for that
year. A similar resolution was de-
feated last year by a‘ mass lobby
of civic delegates to Victoria. Ob-
viously further mass lobbies will
be needed in the future.

O. Howell, speaking fo1i the Pro-
vincial Association of Fire Fight-
ers, made an_ eloquent. appeal
against the proposal. Sole response
was from Mayor Norah Arnold of
Prince Rupert, who admitted that
new councils hardly get under way
until mid-January, and that per-
haps March 15 would be a better
date. Attitude of Non-Partisan
delegates was to force th:dough
the proposal and undercut their
own labor code in order to get
cheap labor.

A motion by Burnaby for in-
creased taxation on railway track-
age carried, despite a letter of pro-
test from the CNR. Burnaby dele-
gates pointed out that at present
railways can not be taxed for more
than $5,280 per mile of main line,
and $3,250 for spur lines, regard-
less of the value of rails and roaa-
bed. The actual cost of laying
one mile of rail is $44,000, without
roadbed. In the U.S., railways are
taxed up to 20 percent of their
value fou' this purpose. Reeve Mor-
rison emphasized that low taxes
paid by Canadian railways are out
of proportion.to the value of the

posal and voice a unanimous de-
mand that Burnaby. council pur-
chase an incinerator. Following
the. meeting, 300 signatures to a
petition were obtained.

The proposed new site, rendered
necessary because the present
dump at Barnet “threatens to°en-
croach on the CPR right-of-way,”
is a ravine at the foot of Capitol
Hill, long recognized as one of
Burnaby’s most scenic residential
areas, only a-short distance away

from the new Westridge housing
‘development.

Residents of the area, who have
frequently complained to the coun-
cil about fumes and smoke from
the Shell Oil plant there, declared
at Sunday’s meeting that estab-
lishment of a dump on land which
had supposedly been set aside as
a, park site, would create a health
menace because of the rats it
would attract and a fire hazard,
and would lower property values
in an area where many new houses
have been built.

“Councillor J. D. Drummond, who
himself lives on Capitol Hill, at-
tempted to excuse the council’s
proposal with the remark that “the
dump has to be in someone’s back
yard.” :

“Not at all,” declared former
councillor Harry Ball. “The coun-
cil can, get a modern incinerator.”

To Councillor Drummond’s
contention that even with an
incinerator a dump would still
be needed, Ball retorted that a
modern incinerator would burn
all tin cans and such materials,
and that processed garbage
could be used for fertilizer, en-
abling the incinerator to pay its
own way.

J. J. Moodie was named chair-
man of a committee of ten to
present residents’ demands to the
council and take whatever other
action might become necessary.

The proposal has served to focus
attention on lack of planning in
Burnaby, whose population has
doubled over the past few years.

A few months ago, while resi-
dents of the Vancouver Heights
district were picketing BCElectric
transmission line towers along
Boundary Road which Burnaby
council ineffectually protested, the
council proposed to throw land
north of Edinburgh street open
to industrial development. Only
prompt action by aroused resi-
dents, who organized protest pe-
titions and sent delegations to the
council, scotched this recommend-
ation and obtained the land for
park development. Now, at Capi-
tol Hill, a park reserve is proposed
as a garbage dump.

Manitoba election
probable in October

WINNIPEG
A provincial election in Mani-
toba is regarded here as a certain-
ty for October. Official date has
not yet been set but it is believed
it will be either October 17 or 24.
Contrary to rumor, the Liberal-_
Tory Coalition government will not
break up before the voting takes
place and will campaign as a
Coalition despite big cracks in its
ranks. The CCF is now the official
opposition. The LPP has one mem-
ber, W. A. Kardash.

A Coalition caucus on August 29
gave Premie1i Campbell authority

land adjacent.

to set the date for the election.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — SEPTEMBER 16, 1949 — PAGE 7