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Non-partisan juke box

QR the past ten years,” under the Civic Non-Partisan
Association, the city hall has been a political juke box
with only one record, whether. rendered in G. G. McGeer’s
windy bellow or George Miller’s falsetto, ‘Keep politics out
of the city hall.’ HN ys
That record, like the, city streets, is pretty well worn
out. Now, with McGeer’s new incursion into civic politics
producing some discordant ,passages in the Civic Non-Parti-
san Association’s theme song; it will be a tone-deaf citizen
indeed who cannot detect the false notes.

In 1937 when Liberals and Conservatives came together
on the civic field to launch the Non-Partisan Association
the Liberals dominated. the coalition. Like the provincial
Coalition government itself it was a merger of necessity,
an attempt to prevent any organized expression of popular
protest from obtaining representation at the city hall. And
to give some substance to its claim to be non-partisan a few.
trade unionists, men who had broken with the CCF or open-
ly affiliated with the old-line parties, were admitted to its
hand-picked slates.

Through nine elections, with the single exception of
1938 when Dr. Lyle Telford took the mayoralty im a six-
way contest, the Non-Partisan Association returned most
of its candidates to the city hall, as much through progres-
Sive disunity as through the smooth operation of its own
machine. The only change in that time has been the emerg-
ence of the Conservatives-as:the dominant force in the civic
coalition. So RE Sees

In 1942, the Liberals’ George Miller, whom McGeer

promoted as his successor when he felt the urge to remove
himself to more distant parts, was edged out by the Conser-
vatives? equally inept A.;W. Cornett. Since the change from
a Liberal to a Conservative chief magistrate was effected
without the slightest disturbance of policy, however, it
meant little to the increasing number of citizens who felt
it was high time for a radical change at the city hall and
yet who saw no alternative because of the CCF’s refusal
to join forces with labor and other progressive groups. ~

To one man, former Alderman Halford D. Wilson, the
change was significant. As an aspirant to the mayoralty he
saw himself as Cornett’s logical successor and, naturally,
he expected to get the Non=Partisan Association’s endorsa-
tion: That apparently. was where he made his mistake.

There have long been indications that the Liberals,
dominating the provincial Coalition government as they dem-
onstrated when they replaced the late R. L. Maitland with
Gordon Wismer in face.of Conservative protest, have not
viewed too kindly Conservative domination of Vancouver's
civic coalition. Last week, at the Non-Partisan Association’s
annual gathering, they moved, naming Senator G. G. Mc-
Geer for the mayoralty and young Sam Cromie of the Lib-
eral Vancouver Sun for council.

Halford Wilson, of course, is indignant. He charges that
‘through the issuance of complimentary tickets, ‘sell-out’
excuses and other devices, the inner clique of the associa-
tion was endeavoring to:‘hand-pick’ those attending the
banquet.” He is convinced that. “their key objective was to
secure the endorsation of a mayoralty candidate favorable to
their particular political viewpoint.” From a man who once
sat as a Non-Partisan alderman this is an,open admission
that the slogan, ‘Keep politics out of the city hall,” is a
sham. 2a eee
The differences between Wilson and McGeer in the
fight now shaping up are not those of civic policies but
‘party politics. Wilson’s past record on the council indicates
that he has no. more to offer to the people and organized
labor in particular than McGeer offered in the bitter ‘thirties.
And, if the citizens of Vancouver should be so unfortunate
as to have either of them as their next chief magistrate,
the CNPA will still be the victor. McGeer is the CNPA’s
choice. Wilson, if he should win, will undoubtedly be taken
back into the inner clique he now denounces, as Ald. George
Buscombe was given a place in the CNPA after he ran on
another short-lived ticket and defeated an official CNPA
candidate.

The alternative is not between McGeer and Wilson,
both of whom stand for policies which have denied all civic
progress for the past ten years. The real alternative can
only be presented by the CCF, the trade unions and all
groups determined to bring about civic reform getting to-
gether behind one candidate of their own choice.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 4

SUTUNIUTITUNTHNUITLUENOTOTTLOLNINOUEUAOTULUTOGCUCOCTATUUTUOUOTOTETTs

As we see it

SILTUUUU TUTTLE. TTT TUTTE B y To im fA cE wef

IGURES released from

Ottawa: last week on the,
. federal

government’s “inte-
grated housing plan’, admin-
istered by Central Housing
and Mortgage Association, show
that up to October 1946 exactly
291 low-cost homes for veterans
have been completed for all of
Canada. Under the government’s
first year ‘plan’ an objective of
2928 homes was approved. Of
the 280 allotted to Vancouver
two have actually been com-
pleted. And then, with a mag-
nanimous flourish the govern-
ment report tells us that “war
veterans get preference . . and
buiders get material priority.”
Housing, it’s wonderful.

Wearly three-quarters of a
million men and women served
in Canada’s armed forces. As-
suming that only half of them
need homes now (which would
be a gross underestimation), the
present tempo of federal hous-
ing should meet the needs of
the first 100,000 with a comfort-
able margin of time for produc-
tion delays by profiteering manu-
facturers by the year 3091.

Just picture to yourself avery
old man, his beard spreading
to the morning breeze, aided
up the steps of his new ‘home’
by his grand-daughter, planting
his cane firmly on the front
porch, and, as he surveys the
new clap-board achievement of
private enterprise, croaking to
his grand-daughter in the ver-
nacular of long ago, “too little
and too late.”

C)

FEW days ago the Pacific

Tribune received a _ circular
letter and a number of folders
with membership application
forms from the Vancouver
Branch of the United Nations
Society in Canada. Now we are
fully in accord with the idea of
building such a society in Can-
ada, and of labor becoming so
integrated as to become a pow-
erful factor for progress and
peace within it. But upon look
ing over the personnel of the
society’s national executive com-
mittee for 1946-47, we not that
labor is represented by the late
Tom Moore. Worse than that,
we note that in setting forth

the “purpose -. .- program ...
and needs” of the United Na-
tions Society in Canada, John
Foster Dulles, pre-fascist foreign
affairs expert of the Wall St.

financial royalists, is cited as an —

authcrity. Projection of this
anti-labor anti-Soviet ‘atomic
diplomat’, whose America first

ballyhoo stinks to high heaven
of Goebbels’ technique, can
hardly be a_drawing card for
the building of a healthy United
Wations Society in Canada.
While repeating our support of
the building of such a Society
in Canada and urging the people
of our province, and particu-
larly the labor movement to
take a hand, we would also sug-
gest to the executive of the
Vancouver branch that they
streamline their publicity and
eliminate the dead and morally
decayed from their sponsors.

OQUPLE of weeks ago Winston

Churchill took another peek
behind his ‘iron curtain’ (be-
queathed by the late Joseph
Goebbels), and what he saw
was highly disturbing to the
tory stomick. In spite of Pre
mier Stalin’s frank statement
on the exact number of Soviet
troops in Europe, Churchill sees
a “huge Red army of occupa-
tion impeding democracy.” And
moreover, he is “deeply concern-
ed at the fate of France.” ‘The
recent French election which
put the Communist Party for
in the lead, is highly disturbing
to the custodian of British im-
perialism, who sees in every
step of the peoples of Europe
towards a new freedom and pro-
gress a definite threat to im-
perialism. With the Ttalian
municipal elections also streng-
thening the Communist Party’s
representation, it’S no Wwonacr
that the great man can’t count
troops—especially in Greece and
Plestine—for spots before his
eyes.

@

S VICE-PRESIDENT of the

Pacific Great Eastern (PGE)
and member of the Railway As-
Sociation of Canada, Premier
John Hart is in favor of a 30
percent boost in freight rates.
As premier of B.C. he is ‘agin’
any such boost “unless freight

rates are equalized.” That is
an important qualification which
the people of B.C. should keep
in mind. What it actually means
is that Hart is in favor of the
freight increase, but insists that
it should be paiq by the three
western provinces of Manitoba,
Saskatchewan and Alberta. Of
course, he doesn’t say so, but
that is the, essence of his quali-
fication. And that, it might be
added, has been the policy of
the CPR since it undertook to
‘open up’ the West from the
"eighties onward. The three
prairie provinces have already
agreed to fight the projected
freight steal, without qualifica-
tions.

The people of this
are also in favor of equaliza-
tion. So long as B.C is penal
ized because of terrain or geog-
raphy, or because the rail bar-
ons can spin fancy tales of ‘high
operating costs) (read wages),
its development is crippled: But
to tie this demangd for equaliza-
tion to the tail of a 30 percent
freight boost is merely to aid
in pulling off another rail steal

@

ERALD Gratton “Gerry” Mc-

Geer, anti-labor protege of
the Liberal wing of the Civic
Won-Partisan Association ~ (CN
PA), has hit the civic hustings as”
candidate for mayor. ‘Tilting at
the ‘money powers’ like a -vali-
ant Don Quixote, but minus: that
legendary knight’s wit, Gerry
has emerged from his vocal
‘windstorms as “a man who gets
things done.” :

‘During Gerry’s last sojourn at
the city hall he did get some
things done. Among them, he
cost the taxpayers a police tex-
penditure $70,000 on behalf of

province

the Shipping Federation in
smashing the longshoremen’s
union. He also ran up a like

amount on behalf of the CMA
to starve the unemployed and
club them back into the Relief
Camps for 20c a day. On top of
that, he cost the city the high-
est travel budget item in its
history in order to spread his
administrative buffoonery far
and wide. And, in spite of his
ballyhoo against the ‘money
powers’, he was the best mayor
the CPR ever had.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1946