Canada Packers Packs Away.

Millions by A. C. CAMPBELL

I BELIEVE conditions
will be for the better
as a result of the suspension
of the wholesale price ceil-
ings,” commented J. S. Mc-
Lean, president of Canada
Packers. Unquestionably. But
for whom? The sit-down strike
of the biz packers organized
by Mchean has broken the price
ceilings. Their refusal to buy
Cattle has brought results. That
was the aim. The meat moguls
will now imerease their already
Swollen profits.

Once again Federal Agricul-
tural Minister James G. Gardi-
ner and Finance Minister J. L.
Hsley, under whose department
the Wartime Prices and Trade
Board furctions, have handed
more profits to the monopolies.
Last weelk it was the packers
who received a large chunk of
government largesse. This is not
the first time Gardiner has
worked for the Packers. In 1943
he ruined hog production when
attempting: to blackmail the
Eritish for higher prices he ad-
vised production cuts.

It is true Gardiner criticized
Mclean in the House of Com-
mons for having refused to buy-
cattle. Such criticism, of course,
makes good reading in Hansard
and handy to quote to farm
meetings in the rural hustings.
Perhaps the farmers have not
forgotten the firesale or their
cattle in 1937 during the year
of severe drouth. But talk and
no action makes for higher
prices and Gardiner did not
suggest any legislative or emerg-
ency action te compel Mclean
to buy cattle.

Spread Fable

PeEeeD: the WPTE believed

the fable spread by McLean
that the reason for the meat
Shortage was black markets. In
order to whitewash Mclean and
take public attention off the
eonspiracy he had organized, an
investigation into black markets
was ordered. What the investi_
Gation will mot. reveal is that

the racketeers sit-down strike
intensified any black marketeer-
ing that did exist. Nor will it
State that McLean is telling an
untruth when he blamed the
reason for meat shortages on
the farmers who were not de-
livering cattle. The farmers did
deliver. McILean would not buy.
He wanted to smash the whole-
sale price ceilings. He was up
to his neck in the same con-
Sspiracy as J. S. Duncan of Mas-
Sey Harris Company and the
big dairy monopolies to force
the home consumer, farmer and
worker to pay higher profits to
Big) Business,

Monopoly Prices

ANADA PACKERS has al-
ways underpaid its workers
and gyped the farmers while
selling; meat at monopoly prices.
It controls over 60 percent of
the meat business. Not content

with the fabulous profits made
during the war it now reaches
out to make Canada
Packers are the biggest black
Mmarketeers in the beef business.
Im the early days of the west
those who rustled farmers’
tle soon found themselves in
the centre of a necktie party.
But Canada Packers has been
rustling the Canadian farmers’
cattle for many years and sell-

more.

cat-

ing it at monopoly prices. To-
day the packers are in the
centre of government favor.

Canada Packers Ltd. grew out
of the William Davies Company
which sold salted pork to the
Canadian government for over-
seas use in the first world war.
The salt was paid for by the
Canadian taxpayers in the be—
lief they were buying bacon.
The profit of selling salt pork
as bacon averaged as high as

1,000 percent. The profits finally

landed into the pockets ‘of the
largest shareholder, the tall Sir
Joseph Flayelle. Passing on to
his reward, the place at the

(33

- -- we must urge the Canadian people to eat less and

help the starving countries abroad. We must... ahem,

tighten our belts... .”
PAGIFIC TROESUNE — Page 10

The lifting of the wholesale price ceiling on beef will not benefit the grower—and
certainly not the consumer, but it will add millions to the already swollen profits of
the Packers. Federal Minister of Agriculture Gardiner can be relied upon to do a
good job of work for the packing trust any time these pork barons call the trick.

head of the monopoly is now
occupied by Hlavelle’s relative
J. S. Mclean. At the beginning
of the second world war, while
farm prices were still depressed
and Packinghouse workers were
making from $9 to $15 a week in
Mciean,s slaughterhouse, Can-
ada Packers upped the price of
meat,

There proved to be a strong
resemblance in patriotic outlook
between the late Sir Joseph who
sold salt pork, and his nephew
by marriage J. S. McLean. In
one month from September 7
to November 7, 1939, meat prices

A. G CAMPBELL
“. .. in the early days of the
West those who rustled farm-
er’s cattle soon found them-
selves in the centre of a necix-
tie party.”

rose by 10 and 18 percent. In
that same month prices to far-
mers decreased.

All during the past war there
kas been no floor under live
beef prices. Canada Packers did
much as they liked. When Mc-
ean said this spring that the
Packers were losing money on
cattle purchases he really meant
that at the moment he was not
getting the large profits to which
he had become accustomed. They
did not operate at a Ioss.

Exploits Farmers, Labor

[7 is well known that during
the depths of the depression
many farmers shipped cattle to

_ again pay

the packers and found them-
selves owing the railway com-
pany meney. The packers got
the cattle for less than the
freight. And certainly the pack-
inghouse workers did not get it.
They worked long hours for mis-
erably low pay. Canada Packers
exploited to the full both work-
ers and charged

monopoly prices to the consum-

and farmers

er.

The earnings on invested capi-
tal in Canada Packers in 1930
was 3.1 percent. By 1933 through
the monopolistic
ready described J. S. McLean
was able to increase the earn-
ings of Canada Packers to 123
percent on invested capital. The
Price Spreads Committee, which
whitewashed McLean by
Saying there
evidence definitely to prove it
was a monopoly, revealed that
in the depth of the depression
that Canada Packers had writ-
ten off well over half of the
total amount ($11,000,000) of
what it had paid for the com-
panies it owned as a holding
company. :

practices al-

later

was insufficient

ODAY Canada Packers wants
the farmers and workers to once
for any extension
of its heldimgs while it main-
tains profits at their high levels.

Canada Packers have
weil during the past war.

done
Over

3,619,320,000
hams, beef, mutton,
ages and canned products have
in the six years
which ended Dec. 31, 1945. In
1945 Canada’s meat exports
reached a value of $172,769,000.
And for a number of years to
come Canada Packers have as-
sured export markets.

pounds of bacon,
lamb saus-

been exported

While Gardiner, Usley and
McLean urge the Canadian peo-
ple to eat less and help the
Slarving countries abroad their
two-faced speeches fool no one.
The driving force behind their
plans to narrow the domestic
market and force the Canadian
consumers to pay higher prices
less food is the desire to
and hold export mar-
imperialist competition.
is true of Massey-
inereases the

tor
“corner”
kets in
The same
Harris Co. which
cost of production to the Can-
adian farmer in order to ship
socalled “low cost” goods abroad
while maintaining the wartime
level of profits.

Such policies by the federal
government if permitted fo con-
tinue. lead to another economic
erisis. It narrows the home mar-
ket causing unemployment, high
industrial prices, and depresses
the farm income. They should
meet the vigorous opposition of
the combined forces of labor
and the farm organization.

PACKING

the fight against

a neat $2,187,586.76.

$3,419,000.

$32,530,544.

FABULOUS PROFIT

CANADA. PACKERS LIMITED is a leader in
increasing employees’
maintaining price controls. But financially speaking,
the titan packinghouse monopoly hasn’t fared too badly
from the war. For instance: in 1944, its net preiit was

These figures do not include depreciation, tax re-
bates, and other means of money. juggling. But some
idea of what they are like can be had by just one
pertinent fact: from 1940 to the start of 1944 Canada
Packers daid aside, in. War Inventory reserves alone,

And, by the company’s own admission, from March
1928 to March 1944 the total net profit earned was

BARONS’

wages and

FRIDAY, JUNE 14, 1946

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