al resources.

Wall Street sees in the PGE
an opportunity to combine
military adventures with the
plundering of Canada’s natur-

—VICTORIA, B.C.

Foxeicn military and financial interests are planning
to muscle in on the biggest natural resources “steal”

in the history of British Columbia.

American brasshats

and millionaires are attempting to get control of the Pacific
Great Eastern Railway, owned and operated by the govern-

ment of British Columbia for the
past 30 years.

It has now become known that
President Truman has given the
gSreen light to construction of a
Military railway through Canada
to where the U.S. is feverishly
constructing hush-hush rocket
and bomber bases in Alaska. Wall
Street interests seek to incorpor-
ate the PGE under their owner-
Ship—in this system with an eye
to the vast natural wealth they
Would expect to get through such
a deal.

The PGE has cost the people
of B.C. an original $23,000,000, plus
another $87,000,000 in interest
Since the scandal in 1917 that
rocked the province and forced
the government to take over the
bankrupt and uncompleted line.

Though the line was originally
Scheduled to run from Vancouver
to Prince George and beyond,

CPR influence resulted’ in the
government ceasing construction
at Squamish and Quesnel, Hence
the line has acquired dubious
fame as the line that “begins no-
where and ends nowhere.”

For years the single-track rail-
road with its twice-weekly service
was derisively referred to as the
“Pacific Great White Elephant,”
but during the Second World war
it began to pay its way. Settlers.
from Pemberton to the Peace
River who had seen a succession
of governments betray their elec-
tion|. promises to complete the
PGE increased their pressure on
the Coalition government to fin-
ish the road and extend it to he
Peace River. Engineers confirm-
er stories that the Peace River
held one of the greatest anthra-
cite coal fields on the continent.

The government, after absorb-

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By Henry A. Stimms

® How did your MLA vote?

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By Leslie Morris.
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on a profitable basis. Instead,
John Hart, then premier and still
PGE president, initiated a scheme
for the line to be extended by a
four-way partnership consisting
of the provincial and federal gov-
ernments, the CNR and CPR.

This setup would allow those
monopolists grouped round the
CPR to bring the undeveloped
natural resources of the area with-
in their control.

e
RECENT developments show
that the CPR faces stiff com-
petition for the loot.

Other groups of American fin-
ance-capitalists are now seeking
to head off the original Hart dea}
and grab an estimated minmum
$150,000,000 annual’ rakeoff for
themselves.

Two related factors give this
project often mooted in the past
three years but never acted upon,
a new importance. They are:

@ The King government's policy
of making Canada an economic
colony of Wall Street,

@ The frantic war hysteria
gripping Washington and Ottawa,
with brasshats in both capitals
and in Alaska béating the drums
for a war railway to serve the
war. bases now. threatening the
peoples of Asia and Europe.

The suspicious delay in fulfilling
the Hart plan is now capped by
CNR president Vaughan’s an-
nountement that his line is not
interested in the PGE and that
the latter could not be extended
for at least ten. years without
government assistance. Hart's
claim that there is “nothing new”
in this was answered in the pro-
vincial legislature by Harold
Winch, CCF Opposition . leader,
who pointed out this does not ex-
plain why Vanghan should sud-
denly make such a statement at
this time.

It is no secret in the capitol
that the U.S. war department has
survey maps which thrust. the
PGE to the headwaters of the
Yukon.

Three American railways— the
Northern Pacific, the Great Nor-
thern and the Milwaukee Rail-
road—are said to be willing to
take over the PGE.

Willis T. Batcheller, president
of a Seattle firm of consulting
engineers, has announced that he
speaks for an eastern syndicate
(presumably the Delaware group)
prepared to put up $200,00,0,000 to
extend the line to Sifton Pass,
provided the American and Cana-
dian governments put up $375,-
000,000 to take the line to Fair-
banks “as a defense measure”.
Batcheller is thought to be the

Billion dollar steal

ing the deficit for years, was now
in a position to complete the PGE

man who approached Hart claim-
ing close connections With the
U.S. government, At any rate he
is now reliably reported to be in
Washington, D.C., ‘“advising’’ Pres-
ident Truman on the profitable
“defense” measure.

Proposals for public completion
of the PGE and planned develop-
ment of northern resources have
been spurned.

The Hart plan, conceived as a
countermove to public develop-
ment, has now been years in the
discussion stage.

All this, coming after a genera-
tion of frustration, is producing
a reaction in some quarters of,
“Let’s let the Americans come in
and get the job done.”

Longstanding and serious pro-
ponents of northern’ development
view this reaction with alarm.
“The Americans are in enough al-
ready,” they say. “To let Wall
Street get its hooks in the PGE
could lead to the plundering of our
natural resources on a scale un-
dreamed of. On top of that it
would make the north the no
man’s land of a third world war,
should it come. “To go ahead, the
north needs highways of Peace
and friendship with our northern
neighbors. Only determined pub-
lic pressure, coupled with changes
of government in this country,
can make that possible now.”

New bill threatens U.S. liberties

—NEW YORK

E House committee on un-

American activities has al-
most completed work an a far-
reaching measure ostensibly
aimed against Communists but
in effect outlawing all opposition
to the U.S. government’s policy
of drift toward war.

Core of the bill is a require-
ment that the Communist Party
and all organizations regarded
by the justice department as
“Communist fronts” register with
the department and file full lists
of their members.

The Communist Party is de-
scribed in the bill as an “illegal
conspiracy” although it has never
been decisively established in
American courts that thé Com-
munist Party in any way violates
the U.S. Constitution or laws.

The bill directly threatens
labor in a clause providing im-
prisonment for anyone who “con-
spires to disrupt the trade, com-
merce or government in the U.S.

with the intent to further the

objectives of the world Com-
munist movement.” Practically
every major strike in U.S. history
has been. represented as_ dis-
rupting American trade and com-
merce and presumably this clause
would apply to all such strikes.

The new third party movement
is also subject to direct attack
under the. bill.. Any member of
an organization designated a
“front” by Attorney General Tom
Clark becomes liable to impris-
onment for being part of a con-
spiracy “to subvert the interests
of the U.S. to a foreign Com-
munist power,”

On the recently-released pre-
liminary list of “subversive” or-
ganizations— prepared by FBI
chief J. Edgar Hoover, for the
justice department—were groups
raising funds for Spanish Repub-
licans, schools where Marxism is
taught, civil rights bodies, Negro
organizations and scores of
other groups advocating one or

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MAY 7,

more of the elements of the
third party program,

It has now been announced
that a new, longer list is being
prepared and newspaper propa-
gandists have been urging in-
clusion of the Progressive Citi-
zens of America—the body from
which the third party movement
stemmed.

3S
E loose wording of the bill
would apparently permit

prosecution of any one who rais-
ed any criticism of American
foreign policy. It has been point-
ed out, for instance, that U. S.
abandonment of Palestine parti-
tion is said to be a strategic ne-
cessity. Anyone opposing this re-
versal of U.S. policy might. be
considered to “knowingly sub-
vert the interests of the U.S. to
those of a foreign power.”

Other provisions of the bill
would require the justice de-
partment to investigate any or-
ganization termed subversive by
the House or Senate.

1948—PAGE 5