LABOR’S VOICE FOR VICTORY

= | yoL. ili. NO. 27 = 2

5 Cents

\ Vancouver, B.C., Saturday, July 8, 1944

Yukon Gas Price Raised
Monopoly Pressure

Seen Behind Hoist

ni iS

“One of the immediate effects of the increase in
the retail price of gasoline in the Yukon from 45
cents te 75 cents a gallon will be to put hundreds
\of truckers off the road. Men who depend on their
livelihood by trucking on the Alaska Highway will
be out of a job,” Tom McEwen, LPP provincial
organizer, who recently returned from the Yukon,
told The People this week.

“The present rate of six and one-half cents a
ton mile obtaining between hundreds of private

begin to cover the price of gas at 75 cents a gallon.
“Tt will also have the effect of cutting motor

vehicle licence révenue to the territory by probably

more than half of its present $5,500 a year.”

transport by White-Pass and Yukon Railway inter-
ests Was responsible for the price increase. Until
now the Northwest Service Command has been
able to bring gas into the territory at 45 cents a
gallon.

“Obviously, from the protest now being made

by local dealers and consumers in the Yukon and
from the inquiry of the Wartime Prices and Trade
Board, this action constitutes a violation of the
OPA and the Wartime Prices and Trade Board regu-
lations,” McEwen stated.
; “Utilization of Canol facilities in the interest
- of the consuming public should have been effective
in giving the people of the Yukon the use of a Can-_
adian product without monopoly control.”

truckers and the Northwest Service Command, won’t

McEwen charged that monopoly control of

eed For
[Low-Cost

Aitetiative: to yReaction=

=

Gonada: Ss war Sifoee is bem) saged by the nation dnd nor by Shy one

particular party and next to the over-riding desire to win the war, the people |

of Canada are concerned with social security in the postwar period. This is
what motivates our policy of a Liberal-Labor coalition in the next federal

election,”
People this week.

Sam Carr, national organizer of the Lalor Progressive told The

Carr, in Vancouver on an organizational tour of the province, expressed

Steadily the Allies are driving towards the heart of Japan.
Here American troops are shown as they landed on Satpan
Island in the Marianas group te consolidate their beach-
Bene

Interpretation of recent Ottawa decisions on
housing raised a storm of discussion this week
shortly after their announcement, and all groups
concerned in finding a solution to Vancouver's
acute housing crisis are pressing for clarification
on the question.

In a statement to the House of Commons,
Munitions Minister C. D. Howe said:

That due to shortage of materials and man-
power, Canada’s housing pregram musi be cut
down during 1944:
action may cut in half the present 400 a month
quota on construction permits issued in Van-
couver.)

Continued on Page Eight

(It is belteved here that the

Continued on Page Eight

To Franco

Protested

By ANNE KELLY

LONDON — A aall for
the liberation of Spain was
issued tere this week by the
National Council of Labor,

which sharply criticized
Prime Minister Churchill's
recent “kindly _ words” about
Franco. “Ehe armies of lib-
eration,’ its statement de-
clared, “are now closing in

from the east, west and
south for the destruction of
the German military ma-
chine. In these , auspicious
days, the British labor
movement sends fraternal
greetings to its friends in
Spain. © :

“It expresses the fervent
hope that the heroism of the
Spanish republicans will
soon be rewarded by a great
democratic self-liberation.”

~The National Council of
Labor is the highest body
of British labor, uniting the
executive committees of the
Labor party, the Trades,
Union Congress, the Parli-
amentary Labor Party,
composed of the 160 La-
bor members of Parliament,
and the Cooperative Party.

Rebuking Churchill, the
Council's Statement recalls
the “tragic years” when: the
Spanish people ‘ ‘engaged ia
a bloody struggle in’ defense
of their constitutional rights
and privileges.” Guernica,
the statement adds, was the
first experiment of the Luft-

waife in aerial bombard-
ment of civilian popula-
tions. “Having tested their

weapons on the bodies and
souls of the Spanish people,’
it concludes, -““Mussolini and
Hitler started to conquer
new worlds through the

devastation and enslavement

27

of Europe.