She se

OF nige ip

ortrait of a
company town

-By N. E. STORY

FOR years Ocean Falls has been

One of the: most rigidly con-
trolled company towns in British
Columbia. Its geographical iso-
lation, 244 miles north of Van-
Couver and 60 miles from the
Rearest habitation, with no over-
and communication, makes it
€asier for Pacific Mills to main-
4in its rule. And behind Pacific
Mills stands Crown-Zellerbach,

€ huge U.S. paper monopoly
Which owns company towns all
ver the continent.

‘Less than a century ago this
Was still the fishing and hunting
€rritory of the Native Indians
°f Bella Coola and Bella Bella,
’s it had been for centuries.
Probably the first Europeans to
“isit the area were Captain
George Vancouver and his crew,
during their exploratory trip
along the B.C. coast in 1793, but
the first European settler did not

“tive until 108 years later —
™ 1901

In that year a pioneering Scot
amed Simon MacKenzie acquir-
1 4 crown grant of 260 acres of
and with water rights. Appar-
ently, commercial interests soon
“arned of the value of his ac-
“uisition—and the rush was on!
, acKenzie was swept out almost
"mediately, as ownership pass-

Tapid succession to different
Companies.

Tn the process, timber leases
1 80,000 acres of adjacent land

pane acquired and a sawmill and
€r buildings were constructed

n

0

at Ocean Falls itself. For a time
i Merican and British capital
hterests clashed, but, shortly

ater the outbreak of the First
fon War, Crown - Zellerbach

RS Med Pacific Mills Ltd. to gain

Satrol of all buildings, land,

ee and timber rights, as well

th €xtensive rights elsewhere in
© province,

fog obstruction was rapid and be-
5 4 the war ended, Ocean Falls
est Srown into one of the larg-
the Paper mills in Canada and

m 7 ] =
tario, Ost versatile west of On
Rratle union organization made
Jor gains in the B.C. paper in-
Ustry at this time, but in 1921
oncerted attack organized by

aCific Mills and the Powell _

Wer ¢

: 0 :
‘ions, mMpany smashed the un

After that, the industry

remained unorganized until 1936-
37, but it is unlikely the paper
industry would have been re-
organized quite so soon had it
not been for the company’s fear
of a militant CIO union and its
need of a union label-for certain
overseas markets.

The isolated geographical loca-
tion has numerous advantages,
aside from its political value,
including:

+ An supply of

abundant

water (essential for the manufac-

turing process itself and as a
source of hydro-electric power).

+» An abundance of cheap
raw materials near at hand, of
which timber is the chief one.

The

HENEVER The Merchant of
Venice is produced it revives

+ The most economical trans-
portation of all — the ocean —
right at its warehouses.

+ A favorable topography
for disposal of solid and gaseous
wastes (a major problem for
paper mills close to populated
areas).

When appraised in conjunction
with: the shockingly low provin-
cial taxes levied on corporations,
and the huge land and timber
steals which have been current
for years and lately have been
legitimatized under the Forest
Management Act, it is not diffi-
cult to understand the source of

“the huge profits extorted annu-

other indoor sports.

ally by Crown-Zellerbach from
its Canadian investments. Mon-
opoly price-fixing, especially in
newsprint, is another major fac-
tor. ,

Pacific Mills, with a capital
investment of $20 million toward
the end of the Second World
War, has increased its worth by
more than half in the interim,
with parallel gains in other Zel-
lerbach subsidiaries (Badwater
Towing, Hudson Paper, Canadian
Box, etc.) whose operations span
Western Canada.

In its fiscal year ending April
30, 1952, Pacific Mills alone
grossed $30,635,015 for 165,879
tons. of its products, netting a
profit of $4,035,431 after taxes.

Over and above all this, Pacifié
Mills, in partnership with Cana-
dian Western Lumber, in the fall
of 1952 opened a modern $21
million newsprint mill at Dun-
can Bay on Vancouver Island. At
the present moment, it is report-

‘ed that Crown-Zellerbach is in

the process of purchasing Cana-
dian Western Lumber outright.

Ocean Falls is one of the wet-
test inhabited areas on the con-
tinent—tHe average annual pre-
cipitation is 170 inches, more

. than three times that of Van-

couver. Nevertheless, it has a
wide range’ of outdoor sports
such as fishing, hunting, boating,
etc.,.and skiing in the winter.

The town itself has a certain
variety of recreational facilities,
including a movie theatre, a tiny
library, bowling alleys, swim-
ming pool, and facilities for
The com-
pany maintains a full-time re-
creational director.

These outlets, however, are un-
able to prevent Ocean Falls’ ex-
tremely high rate of labor turn-
over. Only a minor fraction of
its 3,000 inhabitants can be term-
ed “permanent” in any sense of
the word.

The isolation and drabness of
daily life, coupled with the psy-
chological pressures of company
town life—the intolerable inter-

ference in the workers’ private
lives off the job as well as on
which characterizes company
towns—makes the average work-
er’s stay in Ocean Falls a brief
one. In fact, since the end of
the Second World War, Pacific
Mills has been obliged to import

workers from Europe and Eastern

Canada, in addition to DP’s.

This fluid labor force, weaken-
ed by company intimidation, has
created special organizational
problems, not faced by the aver-
age trade union local.

Of the 1,200 union members,
about 80 percent are members
of the Pulp and Sulphite Work-
ers and the remainder belong to
the Paper Makers. Both locals
are party to one industry-wide
agreement, which includes a un-
ion shop, and cooperate on an
improving basis.

In the early years of their
-existance, the two union locals

were little better than legitimat-
ized company- unions, but recent
years have seen the rapid de-
velopment of a healthier union
spirit under more mature leader-

ship.

This growth has continued in
spite of skilful company tactics
of intimidation, bribery, and de-
ception. The latest move is -to
“decentralize” the company
town monopoly. Basically, this
is a “build your own home”
scheme on the outskirts of Ocean
Falls, which serves the double
purpose of tying participating
employees to heavy mortgages
and creating the deception of
“independence” from company
control.

Such tactics are clear indica-
tions of the weakening grip of
the company, but provide no
grounds for complacency on the
part of the workers. Neverthe-
less, if present indications are
any guide, if organizational ac-
tivity continues to grow as it is
now, the coming period should
be one of important new ad-
vanees for the workers in Ocean
Falls—and throughout the B.C.
pulp and paper industry.

truth about Shylock

a controversy around the role of

Shylock. Last week this play
pre the season at the Shake-
speare Memorial Theatre, Strat-
ford-on-Avon, with Peggy Ash-
croft as Portia and Michael Red-
grave as Shylock. And ‘here, ak
A. Jackson, one of Britain’s out-
standing Marxist scholars, -com-
menting on the production, ex-
amines Shylock as Shakespeare

conceived him and as his role:

has been variously interpreted.

By T. A. JACKSON

OR many of us The ‘Merchant
F of Venice was spoiled when it
was rammed down our chile ish
throats at school. Which is a
great pity: because as entertain-

ment Shakespeare rarely sur-

passed this play.

And while it is true, as Hazlitt
maintained, that there are a
thousand speeches in ss Shake-
speare” as good as the quality
of mercy” speech, it is a very
good speech. Like most of Shake-
speare’s gems, it suffers more
from being ‘torn from its con-

text than the play would do from

its omission.
Moreover, —
Venice contain
eal conundrum — the
Shylock. }

The Merchant of
s a notable criti-
part of

Should this be played as low

Or‘as high tragedy?

dy?
“until Edmund Kean probe
tradition, Shylock was meee

played as a grotesque an

horror whose malignant spite
was deservedly rewarded with
the loss of his daughter, his duc-
ats, his law-suit and his reputa-

tion.

That he had conspired with .

selfdefeating cunning to take the
life of an over-trustful “Christ-
ian” merchant was sufficient—he
being a “Jew’—to make actors

“WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

and audiences revel in his de-
feat, his humiliation and his final
reduction to virtual beggary.

This farce-conception falsifies

Shakespeare chiefly by  over-

stressing and isolating one as-

pect of the complex character
Shakespeare drew. |

In more recent years the actors
and producers have tended to
repeat the error in reverse. Shy-
lock has been so over-dignified:
—rendered so noble, so pathetic,
so much a tragic-figure—as to

make nonsense of the play’s
basic action.
rc)

The’ truth seems to be that
public feeling on the question of
the “Jew” and of anti-Semitism,
has changed so drastically that it
is hard for us to realise how dif-
ficult it was for Shakespeare
even to hint that there could be
a pathetic side to such a char-
acter as the “Jew”? Shylock.

Moreover, any Jews in London
during Shakespeare’s day were
there illegally and had to mas-
querade as Portuguese, Dutch or
even Turks. The medieval con-
ception of/the “Jew” as a mon-
ster of treachery, meanness and
spite had little chance to be cor-
rected by practical reality.

It says much for Shakespeare’s

. genius that. in. the very act of

seeming to comply with this
hoary “Christian” prejudice, he

introduces subtly the reminder:

that the “Jew” is, after all, hu-
man and that there may be
another side to this object of
ignorant, popular contempt.
e- _

Michael Redgrave make a
brave effort to attain the Shylock
that Shakespeare had in mind.
How far he has succeeded in
achieving a balance between the

older conception and the more
recent one may be a matter for

dispute. That he has made the
attempt is very much to _ his
credit. °

It needs no telling that Shake-
speare uses the Portia theme as
a counterpoint to the Shylock
theme. And Peggy Ashcroft
without, perhaps, becoming
“great” — gives at least a highly
competent and vivacious render-
ing of Portia.

Her part falls, of course, into
two “moments” — the business
with the caskets and the imper-
sonation of a lawyer in the trial
scene. ~

We take these things nowadays
as we take opera—as an estab-
lished convention it is pleasant
to play with: a relief from pro-
saic matters of fact.

You must beat down your na-
turalistic prejudice against the
idea of a father who could make
the fate of his daughter depend.
upon a guessing competition; or,
still more difficult, the idea that
a husband could not recognize
the voice of his newly-wed wife,
however disguised her outward
show.

But once you have got over
that hurdle, the play makes very
good fun indeed. :

What is more, it gives the ac-
tors plenty of chances, and the
Memorial Theatre Company did
not miss a chance.

But—there is always a but—
Shakespeare’s wonderful word-
music never seems to get across
the footlights nowadays.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — MARCH 27, 1953 — PAGE 9

e