Give now to PT fighting fund | Ns By MAURICE RUSH, Editor launch ith this issue of the Pacific Tribune our paper is Feceni €d on the most important financial campaign in Jose Between April and May we must raise 197). as a minimum to keep our paper going in we ee people of this province need a he cn outspoken champion in the sharp struggles a ae ae The PT has and will continue to play Pci - We are proud of the fact that — with your — the PT has continued to publish for 36 years. Our Ps over the years have kept alive the only — “SY labor paper in B.C. ; « Thi 'S year we have to call on all our readers for more than the usual fear| Aci “Ss © ahd a ee ire money this year to meet rising bills, “back the . ensure that we will not be forced to cut cer * ize of our paper. In this period we need a Feiders mest not.a smaller one. It is up to you — our Continue = determine whether we will be able to Sah hour 12 pages, five of them B.C. pages, in 9 year. The only “gold” we get is the “gold” Our ~~ f€aders send ys. e aed the PT drive will be held at a time when OMhiversere people of B.C. are marking two important a the 50th anniversary of the founding of .~"ntennig| wae UE he in Canada and the these Ra B.C.'s entry into Confederation. Both of oige eae will be widely covered in our pages At th © year. Will Use ae of this column is the crest which the PT Mark the eet the drive. It will be our emblem to ePresented important anniversaries. These are “\.'S_embi y the figures “50/100” in the centre of Utstand a the dogwood. For those who do "9 work in the drive a special button with this Crest will N) lm De awarded. (For details of the drive see page * | this eee Opening days of the drive the PT makes ae 9Ppeal to all readers: © to keep B.C.’s fighting labor paper drive off to Send your donation early to get our When ° & good start. Give to the press workers PPreached for a contribution. And above all, Give till; ill j : than - t hurts a little, because we need more ve asked for in recent years. MONOPOLIES ROB PUBLIC New forestry policy urgent need for B.C. By MABEL RICHARDS Half of B.C.’s economy is based on the forest industry but today it provides only nine percent of employment in the province. Shocker number two is that the industry provides even less revenue to provincial coffers than does the sale of liquor through government-owned stores. In fact MacMillan-Bloedel, the largest monopoly, has made more profit in one year than our citizens received in net revenue from the total provincial forest industry — an industry based on a resource allegedly belonging to the people. It has been pointed out before - in the pages of the Pacific Tribune; by the B.C. Com- munist Party, by trade unionists and by the NDP, that official forest policy in B.C. is nothing less than a scandalous betrayal of the people’s interests, and it appears that each year the ‘‘rip- off’’ proves more blatant. More than 15 years ago the Communist Party submitted a brief to the Royal Commission on Forestry which urged, in part, that the Crown should retain all publicly-owned forests and forest land; that timber from such lands should be sold at public auction to the highest bidder. But today, on the contrary, 95 percent of the timber sales in B.C. are non- competitive and the returns and royalties to the province are in decline, despite the rapid growth of the industry. Member of the Legislative Assembly Bob Williams, NDP, pointed out recently that the province has lost hundreds of millions of dollars because in the field of pulp alone there has been no bidding on timber. ‘‘This makes Mr. Williston (Minister of Lands and Forests) the most expensive minister in the history of British Columbia,” . he charged. The decline of revenue, the decline of employment, the ever- increasing ‘‘amalgamation” or collusion between forest companies, and the strengthen- ing of monopoly control through the mergers are the inevitable results of Social Credit policies since the day they took control of the government. The industry is being operated in a way which develops only raw or semi-processed material with a consequent low labor content. As has been pointed out many times, there are thousands of uses for wood ranging from structural timbers to synthetics, and none of these secondary industries have been developed in B.C. Such develop- ment has been urged by every forward-looking group, but again the forest companies have kept us as mere “‘hewers of wood” with no interference from the Bennett- Williston gang in Victoria. It has been said the provincial forest service is starved for funds. Honest employees in the department have expressed concern privately and in public at the manner in which the forets are being handled. When the Chief Forester in charge of tree-planting revealed that for every acre of new trees planted, seven acres are being cut down, he made it known that knowlegeable scientists in the government department are worried, and doubtless under pressure. These men know, perhaps better than most, that a valuable resource is being plundered without due con- sideration of the future. Williams of the NDP says “‘the foxes guard the henhouse’’ when it comes to measuring how much wood is cut by the companies on public or private land. A Scaling Advisory Committee reviews the methods of scaling tech- niques and measurement on the Lower Coast where the most valuable timber is cut. The_ royalties to the province are dependent on. these measure ments. Who sits on this committee? Eleven representatives of the biggest forest companies in the land, and three, only three, members of the Forest Service! In many cases in the interior of the province, measurement is carried out by the employees of the company doing the cutting. When one considers the amount that has been cut determines royalty and stumpage paid to the province, it is clear the ‘‘foxes do indeed guard the henhouse’’. Ministers Gaglardi, Loff- mark, Brothers, et al tell the people again and again there is no money for schools, hospitals, for welfare, while at the same time their partners in govern- ment insist on retaining a forest policy which robs us blind— robs us of hundreds of millions of dollars. : Through the lack of a fair ‘return through open bidding at timber auctions, through low rates set for stumpage, through monopoly control of forest lands (last week two more giants announced a merger): through the lack of secondary industries, through the export of raw logs and semi-processed material, we are being robbed — not only of our forests but of a legitimate return on those forests which in turn could give us the amenities and social benefits we need, as well as thousands of new jobs. A public airing of the forest industry in this province is long overdue. Citizens must demand a total review of where we are at and where we must go in this vital and vulnerable section of our economy. Some of the major Tree Farm Licenses are coming up for renewal. This means the people have the opportunity to demand a phasing out of such giveaway deals, with the forests returned to public control. A Commisiion should be set up to hold such public hearing, with the full - participation of the trade unions, progressive political and conservation groups, and others interested in the future of the forests. NOW IN PRINT Czechoslovakia Lessons of the Crisis For the first time, a definitive analysis of the Central Com- mittee, Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, covering crisis developments in the party and in Czechoslovak society. This informative 100-page document is a complete text of the com- mittee’s December 1970 decisions and traces developments in the country since the party’s 13th Congress in 1966 to the present day. An invaluable source of answers to many of the questions raised about events in Czechoslovakia. 10 CENTS PER COPY SPECIAL RATES ON BUNDLES OF 25 OR MORE order from your local bookstore or from PROGRESS BOOKS 487 Adelaide St. West, Toronto 133,. Ont. {& AID. & Sap TE MYSELF AS A DEEPLY COMMITTED PACIFIST -*- | AND AS PROOF, MAY I OFFER MY INDOCHINA PACIFICATION PROGRAM. pany worl 3/i8/7! PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, MARCH 26 1971—_PA