PROFITEERING, NOT SHORTAGE, RESPONSIBLE FOR PRICE INCREASES

York Daily Worker.

The sudden increase in the re-
tail price of coffee—which has
jumped another four cents a
pound in Canada—is directly the
result of speculation and profit-
grabbing and not a shortage of
supply. This fact is revealed in
a@ special survey by Louise Mit-
chell, published here in the New

Coffee production is highly
monopolized, with the Great Aft-

lantic and Pacific trust topping
the list and dominating the field.

Despite claims of diminishing
production in Brazil and other
South American countries, the
U.S. department of agriculture
announced last month that 1950
crops: would be satisfactory and
at about the same level as 1949.

Brother, you can’t spare a dime

NEW YORK

A million and a quarter more
bags of coffee were shipped to
the U.S. this year than in 1948.

Louise Mitchell. writes: “The
trade and the coffee exchanges
through which it operates to
manipulate prices anticipate an
increased demand in the future.
And so they are boosting prices
now while seizing upon every
slim reason \to justify current

price rigging.” ‘

It will be recalled) that in the
thirties millions of pounds of
colfea were burned in order to
maintain high prices. Some %,-
$00,000 bags (32 ‘pounds per bag)
were destroyed between the years
1931 to 1944 according to the
London Economist. Terrific ex-
ploitation has also depleted Bra-
zil’s coffee trees. It is estimated
500,000,000 trees have been lost

- for the coffee trust

since 1930 by this super-exploita- ‘
tion policy.

reports that heavy profit-taking
has dropped the wholesale price
of coffee, but the retail price—
still controlled by the big chains —
such as A&P, remains high.

U.S. are urging the use of coffee
substitutes in order to force down
prices to their more normal level.

The Wall Street Journal also

Consumer organizations in the

——

Raid on C

anadian UE flops,

companies using shadow

union to stall pay boosts

Activites of the CIO-CCL

TORONTO

raiding clique trying to smash the United Electrical Workers’ union have

been repelled by the membership everywhere, but they are costing the workers thousands of dollars a day in

lost pay increases.

government are apparently using the raids as an excuse to st

This is because employers—particularly the Canadian General Electric monopoly—and
all further on the CGE contract dispute.

The

conciliation board still refuses to publish its report, and the UE is demanding that it be published without

delay.

Desperate in face of member-
ship loyalty to the UE, the clique
of Canadian disrupters brought
their top U.S. general to Canada,
the CIO’s James E. Carey, head
of the cold war shadow union
with which CIO seeks to split the
industry.

Carey was flown to Peterboro,
where the raiders thought they
would be able to take the CGE
plant but after supreme efforts
could pull only 500 out of 3,000
workers to his meeting, and many
of these could by no means be
classified as his adherents.

Meanwhile, in an interview with
Labor News Service, UE’s Cana-
dian district secretary George Har-
ris poured scorn on CIO claims in
the U.S. that the Carey’ company-
union outfit was applying for bar-
bargaining rights for 200,000 work-
ers,

“Truth is,’ he said, “less ‘than
20,000 have seceded. The Carey
tactic’ is to distribute leaflets,

force their way into “meetings, of-
ten under police guard, leave, and
then claim the membership.

“Here’s an example to show the
type of lies they and the business
press are peddling. They distrib-
uted a leaflet in Buffalo, N.Y.,
claiming the Hamilton Wrestling-
house local when in fact at a
meeting of 1,000 workers that lo-
eal voted unanimously to‘ stick
with the UE.”; .

UE members are leafleting
plants organized by brother CCL
unions appealing to the member-
ship to join with them in their
struggle to throw back the raid-
ers and keep raiding out of Can-
ada for good. “What the UE
faces now you will face tomor-
row unless it is stopped,” is
their theme.

_|twice the salary. But, he added,

Guild spiked
by McCullagh

TORONTO
For the second time, C. George
McCullagh, publisher of the Tor-
onto Globe and Mail and the Tele-
gram, has_ successfully smashed.
the organization of a union of his
editorial workers. After more than
60 percent of the employees had
signed. cards in the American
Newspaper Guild, McCullagh was
notified the union was applying
for certification. Immediately he
swung into action, called a meet-
ing of the workers and launched
into a tearful speech about loyalty
and the “one big happy family”
stuff. e

Then, almost as part of the act,
the Globe’s city hall reporter
George McFarlane dramatically an-
nounced that the only reason he
had joined the guild was because
the city hall reporter for the Tor-
onto Star—now organized and un-
der -contract—was making almost

now: that ‘McCullagh had put it
“that” way, he Was turning in
his card. Others took up from}
there and when the job was fone:
there were not enough members
left to win a vote. :

Ten years ago when the guild
was organizing the Globe and Mail
McCullagh was not so delicate. He
simply stuck a memorandum on’
the bulletin board threatening any
employee with dismissal if he
joined the guild.

Recently when he took over the
Toronto Telegram, he told editorial
employees he did not want a un-
ion around there—and in the same
breath he told them they’d have
to work harder, longer, than be-
fore without much in the way of
extra wages.

San Francisco
drive for trade

—SAN FRANCISCO.

The San Francisco waterfront—

workers and shipowners alike —

is solid for trade with the new Chi-
nese People’s Republic.

“Tt would mean jobs for approxi-
mately 3000.west coast seamen im-
mediately,” wrote Hugh Bryson,
president of the CIO Marine Cooks
and Stewards, in a recent article
in the New York Daily Compass.

George Killion, president of the
American’ President Lines wrote

; r
gets behind
ay r :
with China
to Bryson, the Compass article re-
vealed, saying that:

-“We of course are eager to re-
sume trade with China... To that
end we have maintained: a substan-
tial staff, both foreign and native,
in Shanghai... ” ‘ :

“Prade with China,’ continued
the Bryson article, “would mean
transporting thousands of tons of
surplus California rice to Chinese
workers suffering from famine

Number of unemployed
double 1948 figure

> OTTAWA.
Number of jobless Canadians
is almost twice as great this
year as last, government figuires
show. According to the latest
official report, 105,000 persons
are now receiving unemployment
benefits as compared with 55,000
last year. n
Actual number of unemployed
is much greater than these fig-
ures indicate. Seamen, lumber
workers, farm laborers, domestic
workers and many other groups
are not eligible for unemploy-
ment imsurance, and are there-
fore not included in government
statistics. CRS

At ‘iat of Harry Bridges

in San Francisco.
months in Jail

the case goes to the jury.

President Harry Bridges of the International Longshoremen's
and Warehousemen’s Union (CIO) confers with his chief de-
fense lawyer, Vincent Hallinan, at his trial om perjury charges
The attorney. has been sentenced to six
for contempt of court, sentence to begin wher —

Dyson Carter, outstanding scientist and. writer,

Friendship Council.

cause,’ he observed.

Carter outlined sweeping changes
in the world situation—upset of
the U.S. atom bomb monopoly and
the victories won by the Chinese
and other peoples—which empha-
sized the importance of. Soviet
friendship. Canadians, he pointed
out, were curious about the Soviet
Union, “and we have to: satisfy

that curiosity with the truth.”
He

maintained ‘that Canada

DYSON CARTER
Canada can learn much,

and flood.”

has been named

Elected at a recent annual meeting here, Carter stated that the council
first to promote the cause of Canadian-Soviet friendship among those who
farmers, women and young people, national groups,, professional and business people.
when we have to think in terms of approaching peop

Carter named chairman of]
Canadian-Soviet counc

TORONTO
chairman of the Canadian-Soviet
should seek —
had the most to gain, workers:
“The day has gone

le in high places who might lend their names to oUF

could learn a great deal from
the Soviet Union on how to trans-
form the Arctic, that Canadians
could have cheaper milk and bread
if scientists were not scared away
from the tremendously significant
work being done by Trofim Lysen-
ko, the reforestation methods
worked .out by the Soviet Union
could be applied in Canada with

_|great benefit to the pulp indus-
try. Soil fertility and mental health }

were among the varied problems
he mentioned whére a study of
Soviet methods would be to Can-
ada’s advantage.

‘Tf we could apply atomic
“power as it is being applied in
the Soviet Union,” Carter de-
clared, “we could slash the ex-
pensive freight haul across’ the
Rockies, or we could change our .
climate.” Bt Fug Scar ae

_ Assailing the unceasing barrage

of anti-Soviet propaganda, Carter
stated that the Canadian people
were “in debt to the Soviet people
for many progressive measures,
for freedom from fascism, and for
freedom from fear of an atomic
wari :

\

"Soviet representative at the an-
nual meeting was Vietor Bourdine,

|who brought greetings from the

Soviet embassy and VOKS (Soviet
cultural relations society) to the
council and through it to all Ca-
inadians anxious for peace fand

friendship between Canada and —

the USSR. us

Having outlined Soviet peace —
policy and economic achievé-
ments, Bourdine said that “i
the southeastern part of mY
country, where there are hot ~
deserts, my people are correct
ing an ‘error of nature’—with

atomic power they are blasting

mountains ‘and, changing the di-
rection of ‘rivers to where their
waters are most needed for de —
velopment of our socialist ec
onomy.” Ko Shee

Bourdine, himself an example of :

the generation that has grown up
under socialism, held his listeners —
with his clear explanation of the —
basis of Soviet culture and science,
including the recent discussions 0?
formalism in music and Lysenko’s
theories. beers
Mary Jennison, retiring secre-
tary, spoke of some of. the ob-
stacles the council had encounter-
‘ed in its work during the present
dqifficult period,” but she felt that
the very intensity of the cold —
war, the contradiction in propa” —
ganda between the period of the —
wartime alliance and the postwar
period, had produced a desire
among many people to discover

for themselves the truth about the

Soviet Union, New sectetary ©

the council, succeeding Mary Jen-
nison, is William Tweedale.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — DECEMBER 9, 1949 — PAGE 2

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