Tom
McEwen

PRM ME Eee

LCOOHOLIC beverages! Booze! The

most controversial and, next to the
- Manufacture of armaments, the most pro-
fitible enterprise of our times. Since the
thigh cost of printing leaves nothing for
such frills, we cannot feature an elaborate
chart showing the actual contents of a
quart of alleged Johnny Walker, but it
would work out something like this: one-
quarter of the contents reasonably good
' overproof whiskey spirits, with the re-
maining three-quarters consisting of pure
water and excessive taxes.

In the beer-brewing business, water
and taxes are also major ingredients in,
“a glass or a bottle of} “suds.” In the ex-

erages in ‘Canada, water and taxes prov vide
Staggering profits and governmental rev-
-enues, and these in turn produce every
known form of evil political graft and
patronage. A beer parlor license, a five-
cent wage hike for a bartender or a
brewery worker, decrees stating when,
‘how and where alcoholic beverages may”
~be consumed—all are regulated by and
for those who garner these super-profits
and super-revenues. Wihen our big wine-
 and-gioof manufacturer Herbert Anscomb,
in his late capacity as attorney-general in
the late Tory-Liberal ‘Coalition govern-
ment, turned thumbs down on the request
‘of war veterans .to operate their own
_ heer parlor, "Erbie wasn’t moy ed to reject
their plea because of his concern for their
wellbeing, but simply by his singleminded
determination to keep the sale of excess-
watered beverages under the tight ‘control
of his brewers-cum-government family
‘circle. ,

According to

government _ statistics
Beavily diluted, British Columbians con-
tributed $18,773,138 in liquor profits last
year. For a million and a quarter in-
habitants that is a lot of doctored-up
water. Compared with other ‘Canadian
“provinces however, it runs a fair aver-
‘age. One thing it does underline, and that
‘is the pyramid of profits raked in by
_ brewers, distillers and governments.
The first step therefore, in seeking a
lasting solution to this so-called “liquor
problem’—if we are agreed there is a
problem—is to. take at least half of the
water and two-thirds of the taxes out of
the manufacture and sale of alcoholic
drinks; in short, remove at least three-
quarters of the excess profits in booze
and give the consumer a genuine return
for his money. —

At first glance this might look like an
aggravation of the problem, of going from
bad to worse; of increasing the excessive
drinking rather than mitigating the evil.
There is, of course, nothing in history to
Substantiate such a fear. The most tem-
_ perate nations in these or any other times
‘are those nations who have had as free
an access to alcoholic drinks as they have
had to water. On the reverse side, those

nations having the greatest “liquor prob-
lem’ are those that have placed liquor
profits on a par with armament profits;
that have formulated “prohibitive” blue
laws which make a crime of drinking a
glass of beer under certain circumstances;
that have made the beer and* whiskey
Monopoly barons the makers and break-
ers of governments. Both the big distiller
and the corner opotlengsr were the direct

One Year $3.00.

One Year $4.00 .

which; like government liquor, are often

clusive manufacture of all alcoholic bev- .

beneficiaries of prohibition.

The present hullaballoo about the “to
be or not.to be” of cocktail bars as a

' solution to the problem, is part of a
revolt of the people against monopoly-
-government rooking of their stomachs,
their rights, and. their purses. Despite
Elmore Philpott’s past» wordy effusions
on the advantages of the cocktail bar as
it operates in Ontario, the fact remains
that this modern institution is not only
an extension whereby the liquor manu-
facturers. keep a firm hand on their mon-
opoly profits (and their political hacks
in both capitalist parties) but a new and
elaborate hothouse for political patronage
“and political gain.

The garish furnishings, the exotic at-
mosphere and entertainment provided by
these cocktail bars, leave little to be. de-
sired. Everything is on a grand scale,
except the concoctions dished out. These
are measured with the exactitude of an
apothecary, and on the principle of the
smallest possible amount for the heaviest
tariff the traffic will bear. The “little
man” who goes in to have a drink of, the
numerous fluids served, requires approxi-
invately $5 worth at current rates before
he feels he ‘has actually had a drink.
Should he prefer. a bottle of beer, and
dawdle too long between beers, the house
has literally scores of little ways for con-
veying the general idea to him that his
business is neither profitable nor pre-
ferred. In some bars there is also an
‘extra charge on his beer—probably to
cover the cost of “atmosphere.” Like all
other branches of the industry, the cock-
tail bar innovation is beamed primarily
on raking in a profit—and turning its:
customers out at midnight minus half a
week’s wages, and seized with the urge
to contact a bootlegger.

So, let’s have cocktail bars by all
means, but don’t let’s have them wrapped
up in an illusion that they are going to
solve any drinking problems, promis-
cuous, excessive, moderate or otherwise.

e ;

In our young days back in Scotland,

where good ales and whiskey were almost
‘as cheap as water, there were no more
drunks in the whole of Aberdeen on a
Saturday night than one can see at the
corner of Main and Hastings any night
of the week.

Fortey years later, when we lived for
-a time in the Soviet Union and had an
opportunity to see at first hand how a
socialist society handled the “liquor prob-
- lem” we saw léss drunkeness in Moscow,
a city of four million, than can be seen
any day along Carrall and Cordova
streets. Of course, there it is a bit dif-
ferent. There are ng brewers’ and distil-
lers’ monopolies, and the Soviet govern-
ment is not interested in exacting large
excise revenues by selling the people a
mixture of rotgut and water. Most So-
viet liquor stores in the thirties and forties
had large colored charts of human hearts,

brain, lungs, intestines and other parts’

of the body, showing the evil effects of
excessive consumption of vodka and urg-
“ing the people (as a matter of! health) to

mineral waters of the Soviet Union with
their meals and at convivial gatherings.

In other words, Soviet government poli-
cy was to provide good vodka to those
who wanted it at a low price, advise
against drinking too much of it and sug-
gesting wines as a substitute, and direct-
ing all the power of government towards

eliminating drunkeness as a social evil— _
by education and availability, rather than

iby the extortion of super profits from the
sale of synthetic whiskies or other goof!
We think that in the long run the Can-
adian people would prefer this course
too, as the path to sane drinking and
greater national health.
simple: take the water and the profits
out and leave the rest to the people.

Pacific TRIBUNE
Published Weekly at Room 6 - 426 Main Street, Vancouver 4, B.C.
: Tom McEwen, Editor —

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drink more of the many good wines and

The recipe is —

"Drop it and work with
the team orelse... !”

THE RIGHT TEAM SPIRIT

Education for misleadership’

PEAKING at UBC campus last weekend on the Canadian Con-

gress of Labor's “education for union leadership’ institute,
Charles H. Millard, Canadian director of the United Steelworkers
of America (CIO), revealed some queer notions as to what consti-
tutes union leadership. “Unions that don’t know where they
came from,” declaimed Millard, “and haven't the re to
know where they are going, are a menace to society.’

The gist of Millard’s “education” for good union aden
hinged primarily around schemes between unions and management »
for getting the “job done.” If Millard said anything about higher
wages to meet rising living costs, or what should be done about
unemployment while American workers and DP’s are brought in
by the carload to take the jobs of Canadians, we didn’t hear it.
But Millard did advocate ‘‘more immigration’’ as a solution to our
economic problems. So also do George Drew and Louis St.
Laurent.

This chatter about unions’ not knowing “‘where they came
from’ or “where they are going’’ doesn’t stand up to reality.
For instance, the Mine-Mill union at Trail and other Canadian
centres is very conscious of its long history df struggle on behalf
of hardrock miners and’ smeltermen. So. much so indeed, that

when Millard and his lieutenant, Bert Gargrave, led the Steel-

workers raid on that union, with unlimited funds and a satura-
tion barrage of slander and propaganda, Mine-Mill gave Millard -
an’ unforgettable demonstration that it possessed “‘the responsibility
to know where it was going”’ as well as where it had come from.

It is quite possible however, that Millard’s own “education”
for union leadership may not include a knowledge of Joe Hill; of

Cripple Creek, the Coeur d’Alenes or the early struggles of the

Western Federation of Miners in Canada to lay the foundations —
of a great miners’ union against which, with all his ‘ ‘vitality,

vision and knowledge,’’ Millard broke his head and aed the —

great union of steelworkers he presumes to lead.

_ On the other hand, and just because of Millard’s ability to
switch the “‘price tags’’ from the worker to the job, the Chamber
of Commerce tycoons ney soon be Bae ¢ him as a “‘great saa
statesman.”

.

Let’s have fluoridation

T° fluoridate or not to fluoridate? That is the question now troubling Greater |
Vancouver Water Board members, our health authorities and our Non-Partisan ._

city fathers. Already there is some talk of putting the question to a plebiscite in

order to secure public approval or otherwise, before any steps are sigs by the
water board to put the plan into operation.

‘Approaching this problem politically,
be extremely careful, lest we loose on our heads a renewed barrage of slander and
BCE from ‘certain schools of anti-fluoridationists, who have branded

fluoridation as “a Communist plot to poison our water supply.”

From a purely scientific angle, all the weight of evidence shows that eee A
can only be beneficial to health, and particularly, to the health of young children.

Artificial fluoridation is merely taking precautions to see that the proper quantity

of that chemical is present in our water supply. In some areas natural ‘fluorine:
content in water obviates the need of artificial fluoridation.

We believe anything that contributes to ‘human health should be made avail
able, regardless of what pecuniary or other business interests are affected thereby.
And if the lunatic fringe in our midst brands the progress of health measures as

a Communist plot” then let's have more such“plots.”

papers ike the Pacific Tribune have to

PACIFIC beam — NOVEMBER 7, 1952 — PAGI95 —

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