Commission under fire as new
fare steal looms in Victoria —

By MARY MEZGER

Attitude of Ald. H. M. Diggon, chairman of the Greater

mittee, and other civic officials, as well as that

threatening the commuters of

BCElectric and Vancouver

new 20-year monopoly franchise in operation a

Oak Bay and Saanich.
New fares sought are

weekly pass. Present fares are four tickets for 25 cents

ot the
four municipalities here with

Island Coach Line~ are applying for fare increases vith |
bare six months in Victoria, Esquimalt,

four tickets for 30 cents or 10 cents cash with abolition oi the
and 7 cents cash, with a dollar

weekly pass that is used by thousands.

Blood for Israel

President Arthur Osman of

Local 65, Wholesale and Ware-
house Workers (CIO), gives his blood for Israel at the Red
Mogen David (Hebrew Red Cross) blood bank in New York.

George Bowes, pioneer in
Sask. farm movement, dead

SASKATOON.

Co-worker of Gene Debs and Big Bill Haywood half a

century ago, staunch

fighter in

the farm movement of

Western Canada and colleague of the veteran farm leader,
E. Partridge of Sintaluta, Sask., George Bowes, formerly of

Elbow, Sask., died in the Saska-

~ toon City Hospital on May 30. He
is survived by his wife and daugh-
ter Florence.

George Bowes was one of the
pioneers who built the Farmers
Union of Canada in the early twen-
ties and one of the founders of the
Saskatchewan Wheat Pool.

An American who learned his so-
cialism in the hard school of Debs
and Haywood, he brought to Can-
ada the vigor of that experience,
and although he farmed on a large
seale, was never intimidated by the
Tory-inspired bogey, that socialism
or communism “would regiment ag-
riculture” or “take everything
away from the farmers.” George
. Bowes knew too well that the CPR,

the mortgage, land and machine
~ sharks, had already “expropriated”
the farmers to the greatest de-
gree.

In the campaign against the CPR
freight rate steal of 1912, led by
Partridge, George Bowes was &
tireless worker, mobilizing his
neighbors and friends against the
rail barons. In the post-war crisis

of the early twenties, when wheat |

prices didn’t even pay the thresh-
ing bill, he strove for the creation
of a powerful Farmers’ Union and

the idea of cooperative marketing
through the medium of the Wheat
Pool and other cooperatives.

Despite his “big farmer’ status,
his early experiences in the Amer-
ican labor and socialist movement
kept him always close and sympa-
thetic to the struggles of Canadian
labor. When age and _ infirmity
made it impossible for him to take
an active part in progressive farm
and labor movements, his generous
financia] help expressed the consis-
tent hope of his great heart,

To those who were privileged to
know and work with him in the
early days, to feel the warmth and
drive of his dynamic personality,
news of his death came as a shock,
and his passing leaves a void in
the ranks of the. oldtimers who
pioneered in the fight for socialism.

In a tribute to his one-time close
associate, Tom McEwen, editor of
the Pacific Tribune, stated this
week: “In expressing our deepest
sympathy to his widow and daugh-
ter in their great loss, and to those
who shared his struggles and ideals,
let us keep before us the example
of George Bowes’ work and carry

, to suceess the fight against reaction

that was the essence of his life’s
purpose.”

Public Utilities

——VICLORTA, B.C.
Victoria Transportation Com-
Commission, is
increases,
with their

drastic transit fare

The companies are keeping the

figures on which they base their ap-
plication secret, and the Public
Utilities Commission is in cahoots
with the company in that it also is
not releasing the figures.
* Victoria Labor Council has gone
on record as opposing fare boosts
until public hearings have been
held and a plebiscite has been
taken.

Victoria Committee of the Labor-
Progressive Party wrote to the
Commission asking release to the
public of the companies’ figures on
number of passenger miles, cost
per passenger mile and revenue.

In reply, it received this curt let-
ter from A. B. Jackson, PUC sec-
retary:

“phis will acknowledge receipt
of your leiter of June 17.” .

An LPP letter to the four muni-
cipal councils, seeking opposition
to the fare boosts, drew fire at Es-
quimalt council.

“J feel it is very improper of
the LPP to demand this council
to do anything,’ complained
Councillor Wurtele. Reeve A. I.
Thomas thought so too, because,
he said, the LPP paid no taxes to
the municipality. The letter was
received and filed.

A letter from Greater Victoria
Schooij Board Employees’ Associa-
tion, urging council to reject the
fare boost application, was receiv-
ed and filed, Councillor J. A, Ellis
observing, “Those people have no
right to tell us what to do.”

Two petitions from residents on
the inadequate B.C. Electric bus
service in Esquimalt were turned
over to Greater Victoria ‘Trans-
portation Committee as councillors
complained transit grievances
should be discussed as little as
possible at committee meetings.

Ominous sign of civic intentions
in the fare application is the failure
to ©6ccontest the B. CC. Elec-
tric application for an 18 percent
increase in gas rates at this week’s
hearing before the Public Utilities
Commission,

Victoria’s Alderman Diggon has
said he expected the request
for elimination of the weekly
passes because “it was the under-
standing at the time the present
fare structure was approved that
they would be done away with if
costs were too high.”

This may have been Diggon’s
understanding but it was not the
understanding of citizens, who in
a plebiscite taken in December
1945 rejected by an overwhelming
majority a proposed company
franchise that eliminated the dol-
lar pass. The people only accepted
the revised franchise a year ago
because the dollar pass was in-
cluded, with Greater Victoria
Transportation Committee pledg-
ing “lowest fares in Canada for a
city of its size.”

The slick deal pulled at that»
time was that in voting for the
franchise the citizens were also
voting for a little clause tucked
away in the agreement that took
away the people’s right to check
fare boosts by plebiscite,

Paragraph 20 of the franchise
reads, “From time to time either
party shall be at liberty to suggest
a change in the fares ... as may
be mutually agreed upon between
the parties subject to the approval
of the Public Utilities Commission;
and in the event of the parties’
failure to agree in respect thereof
either party shall be at liberty to
apply to the Public Utilities Com-
ee under paragraph 44 here-
of.

The LPP m Victoria is distrib-
uting leaflets calling on the people
to get in touch with their mayor,

CCF accusations proven
untrue by election figures

By NIGEL MORGAN
Recent federal byelections leave no doubt as to what can
be done with the Coalition government in British Columbia’s
next proviricial election with a united labor movement, and
the selection of candidates around whom all anti-Caalition

voters can be rallied.

In a deceitfuliy untruthful ar-
ticie, entitled, “How Center Voted”,
in the CCF News. of June 17, in
which he charges the LPP with
having voted for the Tory, Colin
Cameron moans that “the first
thing to be noted is that nearly
20,0" didn’t vote in Vancouver
venter.

Actually 11,747 less voted in
Center in 1948 than in 1945, which
stands out in sharp contrast to

the Yale byelection the week be- |

tore, where in spite of extreme
flood difficulties, 2,573 more elec-

tors went to the polls than in the

1945 election,

By its choice of an unpopular
eandidate with the disruptive Trot-
skyite record of Rod Young (for
which he was actually suspended
by the CCF in 1937), the CCF
gravely endangered the chances of
defeating the candidates of reac-
tion. The result, of which the CCF
tannot be proud, shows only an in-
crease of 2 percent in the CCF
vote in Center, as against an over-
all increase of 55 percent in its vote
in the last eight federal byelections.
This %3 little wonder in view of the
well-known fact that even many
CCF’ers refused to support an anti-
unity, anti-working class candidate
of the type of Young.

In Yale, where the LPP concen-
trated its efforts to elect the CCF
candidate; where it was able to
sponsor meetings, issue leaflets,
present broadcasts, and help to
mobilize a united labor movement,
the results were very different. In
this traditionally Tory stronghold
the CCF increased its yote by more
than 59 percent, and 2,573 more
people voted, while in Center, @
working-class constituency, the un-
popular CCF choice only gained 2
percent.

It is tco bad that Cameron can-
not stick to facts instead of flying
off into the sort of nightmarish fan-
tasies that cause him to deceitfully
write that “rumors were abroad on
election day that the hierarchy of
the LPP had issued orders to the
faithful to cast their ballots for

Mr. Jestley, the Conservative ...
These rumors seemed at the time
too fantastic for belief ... But an
examination of the returns, poll by
poll, reveals that many of them
must have done just that,” Cam-
eron concludes.

Such a charge is not only
grossly untruthful and _ slander-
ous. It is an example of literary
prostitution of the worst kind.
The facts are that while the CCF
only showed an increase in yote
of 2 percent, the Tories lost 45
percent of their 1945 vote, drop-
ping, from 8,859 to 4,945.

In the east end of the riding,
polls 91 to 125, where the LPP vote
was strongest in 1945, the Tories
dropped from 1,282 to 887, and the
Liberals from 2,391: to 1,809 — or
about a quarter of their 1945
strength. !

If Cameron’s statement were
true, and every single one of the
8,750 LPP votes cast in 1945 had
gone to the Tories, together with
the 1,042 Social Credit votes of 1945
(the Social Credit Party officially
endorsed Jestley), the Tories would
have lost all their former support-
ers except for 153. Ridiculous, of
course, but that apparently is haw
far Cameron and his anti-unity
kind are prepared to go in order
to find darts to hurl at the LPP and
its popular proposals. to work for
the election of a CCF government
and reverse the tide of reactionary,
depression-making, anti-labor pol-
icies. ' ,

The sweeping defeats suffered by
both the Tories and Liberals in
the recent byelections provide full
substantiation of the correctness
of the LPP’s proposals. Recent
election results show that the old-
line parties can be ousted in B.C.
in the next election, They will serve
to spur On those who correctly be-
lieve that united action is the only
road to victory for the labor move-
ment. They will intensify the popu-
lar demand for unity against the
enactors of anti-labor legislation,
the sales tax, and evasion of re-
sponsibility in the present tragic
flood disaster. i

AND ASK

reeve, alderman or councillor to

oppose all fare boosts, particularly |
the stealing of the dollar pass.

Two Years on

The Picket Line

June 6 will see the beginning
of the third year of the I.T.U.-
Southam Province dispute.

TO THOSE WHO SUPPORT OUR CAUSE,
WE SAY

Thank You

CONTINUED SUPPORT

THE DAILY PROVINCE

is NOT PRODUCED with

[.T.U. PRINTERS |

Vancouver Typographical

_

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 25, 1948—PAGE 7

FOR YOUR

Union No. 226