Stop Colum

UT of all the confusing com-
O plex and diverse statements
eoming out of Ottawa and Victoria
on Columbia River power develop-
ment, some basic truths stand out,
(unintentially) in this gigantic
national giveaway to U.S. mon-
opoly.

First ,that the storage of Colum-
bia River water (High Arrow) for
downstream U.S. benefit, is an in-
tegral part of continued U.S. dom-
ination of the Canadian economy.
With this diversion of Columbia
River waters to the U.S. go future
industries in B.C. and the jobs
such industries would have provid-
ed for Canadians.

Even as the U.S.-Canada ‘treaty’
on the Columbia now stands, (as
yet unsigned) a big new $40-mil-
lion dollar steel mill is being plan-
ned by the Anaconda Company in
Montana, with another comparable
plant planned at Clarkdale, Ari-
zona. These two industrial giants,
to say nothing of scores of other
U.S. industrial projects being
planned, will operate on giveaway
power generated from Columbia
waters, and provide thousands of
jobs which the Columbia giveaway
have taken from Canadians.

To add insult to injury Cana-
dians will pay higher rates for
what Columbia power they may
use (as they now do for natural
gas), as a gratuitous ‘subsidy’ to
American users.

As we said, it is difficult for the
layman to grasp all of the confus-
ing details of the Diefenbaker-
Bennet-U.S. Columbia ‘deal’, or
the shadow-boxing between Vic-
toria and Ottawa about ‘sharing”
the costs, ete., of this shady trans-
action.

What isn’t difficult to grasp,
however, is the fact that one of the
greatest resources steals of all

Pacific Tribune

Editor -—- TOM McEWEN
Associate Ednor — MAURICE RUSH
Business Mgr. —- OXANA BIGELOW

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bia sellout

time is being engineered by the
Tories and Socreds; a steal involv-
ing the less of a vast source of
hydro-eleciric power, with its con-
sequent loss of new industries and
the countless thousands of jobs
such industries would provide—
for Canadians.

That much at least is painfully
clear, and with it the vital neces-
sity of doing something about it.
Ottawa and Victoria should be
swamped-with letters and wires,
protesting the sellout of the Col-
umbia to U.S. monoply. Resolu-
tions from trade unions, farm and
other organizations should pour
in on government leaders and
MP’s. Public meetings, expressive
of an aroused public opinion should
make the voices of thousands
heard in Ottawa and Victoria.

There is still time to block the
Columbia River sellout. Canadian
history provides precedents in
which the Canadian people have
halted the annexation of their life-
giving resources by U.S. monopoly,
aided and abetted by Canadian
fast-buck governments.

Let us follow precedent by tell-
ing Diefenbaker and Bennett—No
giveaway of the Columbia.

Froth or

ENDING the tabling of Finance
Minister Fleming’s budget, it is

difficult to assess just how much :

froth and how much subtance is
contained in last week’s ‘Speech
from the Throne’, and particularly
as it may affect the critical issue
of unemployment.

No one will question the wordy
‘frothiness’ of the ‘Speech’, but if
Tory performance to date is any
criterion, either on unemployment
or other vital national issues be-
devilling the economy, foreizn re-
lations, prosperity or peace of
Canada, then a lot of drastic
changes in federal policies is re-
quired to put real substance into
an otherwise frothy substitute.

Nowhere in the Throne speech.

was there any reference to trim-
ming down the vast squandering
of the people’s resources in a U.S.-
pressured armament race. Nor was
there any suggestion that Canada
should cat loose from the danger-
ous and costly NATO and NORAD
alliances. 2

True, there was mention of cur-
taining U.S. domination in Cana-
dian industry, which scarcely
makes sense when measured

substance

against Diefenbaker’s readiness to
subordinate Canada’s economy and
independence to U.S. control. The
ink was probably scarcely dry on
the ‘speech’ when Dief was plan-
ning to turn over the mightly hy-
dro potentional of the Columbia
River system to American mon-
opoly. :

When the budget comes down
we'll be better able to separate the
froth from the substance. Perhaps,
in seamen’s language, to raise the

“Plimsol line’. Meantime the ranks |

of the unemployed continue t¢
grow, the seizure of their homes
and belongings to mount, the lines
around missions and other flop-
houses to lengthen, while the Die-
fenbaker ‘promises’ remain in the
froth stage.

In the minds of scores of hun-
dreds of hard-pressed. municipal-
ities throughout the country the
“winter works” program of thé
Diefenbaker government as a “sol-
ution” to unemployment has been
less than peanuts. The ‘throne
speech’ implied this might be
changed .The budget will indicate
how much substance—or how much
froth.

ae in the roaring 20’s some
labor papers used to run a
column entitled ‘Things We Would

a deadly serious column, posing
questions highly interesting to
working people and, ipso facto as
the legal fraternity say, highly em-
barrassing to those whose main
aim in life was to exploit, diddle
and doublecross the people.

A modern version. of those
columns would go something like
the following:

A list of the names of those
who recommended and approved
the appointment of John Panruc-
ker, ex-manager of the Vancouver
Queen Elizabeth for the job?

Why a number of important re-
ports on the Columbia River de-
velopment (which the - taxpayers
have paid a tidy sum for), cannot
be given to the people of ‘B.C.
before the U.S.-Canada treaty sell-
out is signed?

How Mayor Tom Alsbury man-
ages to line up with an NPA com-

Like To Know.” At times it was

pulsory arbitration dog collar for
city police and firemen, while pos-
ing as a ‘friend of labor?”

With fishermen now allowed
only $8.80-per-ton for herring and
the housewife coughing up 35 cents
per pound, who pockets. the
difference?

The number of bosses in B.C.
who paid any attention to Premier
Bennett’s infantile ‘plea’ to
“stockpile” products and not carry
through any more plant. shut-
downs or layoffs this year?

The identity of a local ‘“social-
ist” who is often described by the
monopoly press as an “awakened
realist?”

What will be the tonnage reduc-
tion on the imports of U.S. sex,
gangster and other obscene “‘pulp”
literature when the present survey
of the damage to clean Canadian
publications is completed?

The number of jobless workers
who found extra coffee and donuts
in the Diefenbaker’s Throne
Speech?

One example of the Public Util-
ities Commission (PUC) doing any-
thing else (with respect to power
rates or fare hoists), other than
what the BC Electric wanted it
to do?

There’s no end to this “things
‘we would like to know” feature. In
the old days it helped people get
to know what was going an around
them. In this age it might give a

boost to getting something done
about it.
@

Hate-crazed white mobs scream-
ing in New Orleans or Little
Rock, Arkansas at Negro students;
in New Orleans at four littie
Negro children just out of the
cradle, their innocent eyes full of
wonderment of. what all the rukus
is about because they want to go
to school,

The new African nations taking
their seats in the United Nations
will not be troubled with such
wonderment. They know. They
have heard these same screaming
mobs of ‘“‘white supremacists” ia
every corner of Africa, inter-ming-
led with the sharp crack of rifles
and the whistling sting of a bull
whip.

But when a Cabot Lodge, a
Dulles or a Wadsworth rises to
speak in the UN Assembly, pour-
ing forth a lot of fine words about
our ‘‘free way of life,” “our demo-
cratic liberties’ and so _ forth,
meantime working themselves into
a fine lather about the “evils of
Communism,” the howls of their
racist mobs make a fitting accom-
paniment to their fine (but empty)
words.

U.S. imperialism which loudly
boasts about “‘liberty” (for others),
still has the belated job of prac-
ticing it—at home. That much New
Orleans has established.

November 25, 1960—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 4 |