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VICTORIA — CP Rail was forced this week to provide daily round trip service on its Esquimalt and Nanaimo Dayliner run from Victoria to Courtenay although the move by the company was far shortof demands voiced by at least one Vancouver Island mayor that the rail line be taken over by the provincial government.

CP Rail had earlier announced it would curtail service on the Dayliner, providing only a partial trip with an overnight stop in Nanaimo.

The announcement had evoked a storm of protest from the mayors of Nanaimo, Parksville, Qualicum, Courtenay and Cumberland and NDP MLA’s Karen Sanford, Dave Stupich and Robert Skelly had called a conference Monday to discuss the cutback. e

CP Rail responded by pledging to return daily round trip service beginning April 28 — the result of considerable public pressure — but not. before Cumberland mayor William Moncrief had reiterated his demand for an immediate government takeover and ex- tension of the present line to Campbell River, some 26 miles further north.

“The CPR has indicated quite

CPR retreats on

clearly that it does not want to

operate a passenger service,”

Moncrief declared and added ‘‘if we hada good rail service we could use trains for transporting people

PT SPECIAL ISSUE

Plans are going ahead to produce a special enlarged May Day-40th Anniversary issue of the Pacific Tribune on April 25. This special edition will carry many interesting features including articles on ‘The On-To-Ottawa Trek,’’ and the “Battle of Ballantyne Pier”? which were two major struggles that coincided with the founding year of the paper, 1935.

In addition, there will be many interesting and _ entertaining features on the 40th anniversary of the paper along with many colorful illustrations and pictures. It will not only be an interesting issue — it will be an historic one which readers will want to keep.

Advertisements and greetings for this special May. Day-40th Anniversary issue must be in the PT office no later than Friday, April 18. Place your advertisement early. Also, order a special bundle for distribution to your friends, neighbors and workmates.

Self serve gas stations no advantage to public

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

Should the big oil companies be permitted to establish as many

_ self-serve gas stations as they wish

in Vancouver?

The question came up in city council on March 11.

At present 42 (13.5%) of the city’s gas stations are self-serve and their number has_ increased rapidly in recent years. They are usually entirely owned by the oil

companies.

The Automotive Retailers Association, representing in- ‘dependent service _ station

operators, presented a brief to council strongly urging that the number of self-serve stations be curbed. Their reasons included the following: ;

e Some of the independent operators will be put out of business because they cannot

rail cut

as well as freight and unclog some of our highways.” Although she offered no com-

ments on the takeover demand,»

Comox MLA Karen Sanford did state that the provincial govern- ment was still not satisfied with the

new schedule announced by CP.

Rail and wanted further changes made. ;

She said the government would

ask the Canadian Transport Commission to request that the E & N service be increased to two runs a day, one leaving from Victoria and one from Courtenay.

Courtenay mayor William Moore added that stations along the line were ‘‘a disgrace”’ and said that he would seek action by the CTC to request a cleanup. CP Rail has allowed facilities to deteriorate in an effort to discourage customers.

The first leg of the E & N rail line —from Esquimalt to Wellington — was built nearly a century ago as part of a massive giveaway program by the then Smithe government which delivered up subsidies of $750,000 in cash and 1,900,000 acres in land to the Dunsmuir coal interests in return for railway construction. The CPR took over the railway some years later.

compete with the lower price of- fered by the self-serve stations. eo Every service station con-

‘verted by the oil companies from

full service to self-service has almost completely eliminated its staff. ,

e The number of service stations providing mechanical and repair service will be greatly reduced to the point where repair service may become difficult to obtain. . :

e Unless the number of self- serve stations is curtailed ‘‘the retailing of gasoline will soon become a direct monopoly of the large multinational corporations.”

e By buying his gas at a self- serve station the motorist saves about $48.00 a year. (This is based on an estimate that the average motorist gets 15 miles to the gallon, by going to a self-serve). But what he gains in price reduction, he loses in service. -

There is one other point that should be added. The main reason the oil tompanies are going directly into retailing via the self- serve gas Stations is to squeeze out the. independent dealers. ~ At present you can get gas cheaper at

likewise. It will be a case of citizen |

a self-serve. But once they have squeezed out the independents, | then monopoly-controlled and monopoly-rigged prices will go into effect. Then they’ll jack gas prices up higher than ever. ;

‘ The city of Toronto prohibits self- serve gas stations. And at least _ three states in the U.S. have passed legislation preventing oil com- panies from directly operating retail outlets. :

Self-serve gas stations now make up 13.5 per cent of the total in Vancouver. Regulations at present limit their number to 15 per cent of the total. But the oil companies have already announced that they | plan to convert 20 to 25 per cent of | their retail outlets in Vancouver into self-serve. If anything this is, probably an understatement.

We can take it for granted that the oil lobby is hard at work en- deavoring to persuade aldermen to lift restrictions on the number of | self-serve stations. I will certainly | oppose that and I hope that citizen. pressure will persuade the majority of aldermen to do

pressure versus oil pressure. | a. Se

Along with Hastings Community Centre ice rink committee chairme? | Jim Cork and Dusty Greenwell, some 60 kids from the Hastings East area filled the city hall galleries Tuesday night to emphasize thel! | request — made on several occasions in the past — for a public skating

facility in their area.

. oF ab —Carey Robson photo |

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE=+FRIDAY, MARCH 21, 1975—Page 2 _

TOM McEWEN

new dawn is beginning tbreak over the green fields and

valleys of Erin, a new hope on an old land. A United Ireland, independent, free and at peace with itself and neighbors is arising from the “Foggy Dew.”

On this road the wanton killings and bombings can be ended. Republican and Ulsterman, Catholic and Protestant, can live in amity, equality and peace, and an arrogant and ruthless foreign rule which has fostered this

murderous division for two centuries or more, will atlong .

last be compelled to leave the scene of its multiple crimes.

“Divide and Rule” has long been the basic policy practised by British imperialism, a policy whereby the lands and peoples of smaller and weaker nations have been sequestered, exploited, dominated and occupied by the military-police aggresSion of the more powerful im- perialist states.

So it has been with Ireland. Every period of its cen- turies-old struggle for freedom has been marked by British intervention, terror and police rule, by wanton killing and violence against the common people, aided by the social-economic-religious divisions it has conspired to create.

The appalling list of Irish martyrs who have died in this and previous struggles that Ireland might be free, is at once a high honor and a terrible tragedy. “A terrible beauty is born’’ as Yeats put it.

=

This week we commemorate the 59th anniversary of the Easter Rebellion of 1916; to the memory of many brave Irish patriots who died there that a free Republic might be born. Especially do we salute the memory of James Connolly, Irish patriot, Marxist and Socialist, who pioneered the vision of a united socialist Ireland nearly three-quarters of a century ago — a vision which lives and

grows today in the urgency of an ever-stronger Irish -

unity.

Grievously wounded in the Dublin Post Office battle of 1916, he was carried in a chair from a prison bed to the prison courtyard to face a British firing squad.

The force for unity, for a socialist Ireland, the vision and goal of Connolly and his fellow patriots of 1916 is very potential, very real. -

A powerful Irish Congress of Trade Unions, counting» among its thousand-fold membership, Catholic, Protestant and non-believers alike, deeply conscious of the import of the struggle for the freedom of their homeland and people; to have done with the false divisions prompted by British imperialism, and to live and unite in the common bonds of fraternity and brotherhood.

The Sinn Fein political arm of the Irish- Republican Army (IRA) and the common people of factory, farm and ordinary people alike, who give their allegiance to its endeavors for an all-in unity against a common enemy.

The North Ireland Civil Rights Movement (NICRM), embracing countless thousands of all creeds and faiths, which promotes the concept of freedom, equality and opportunity for all Irish citizens, and especially victims of the fascist court ‘‘rulings”’ of a foreign ruling caste.

The Connolly Association and the Connolly Youth

Movement, which basically represents the pulsing heart

. of afree, independent and socialist Ireland. And last, but |

by no means least, the Communist Party of Ireland, sma perhaps in numbers, but broad and decisive in its in fluence and ideals in winning the Irish masses for unity and a common objective.

All these organizations express in their entirety, 9 | common aim for a greater unity, for an end to the se | seless and indiscriminate killings of innocent people ~ 7 killings which only give rise to more killing, and provide? |

“‘perfidious Albion’’ with the ready excuse of “staying there to provide law and order,’’ marked only by the graves of Irish patriots and martyrs.

The unity of-all such organizations (and more) would become a powerful potential for the winning of a truly free

government, alien armies, alien divisions or partitions would have no place.

Ireland — a socialist Ireland, an Ireland in which alie? |

That’s what the Irish patriot James Connolly and his |

compatriots fought and died for in the Easter of 1916; fof that countless hundreds of Irish men, women and childre? are being cruelly exterminated today. Ireland has had too many martyrs, too many victims, innocent and guilty alike. Now she needs the courage, unity and solidarity s0 well and so often demonstrated by her finest sons . . - 0 win the goal of a free Ireland . .. a socialist Ireland!

A British ‘Tommy’ remembers:

Ready, Present! and-he just smiling ... God!

I felt my rifle shake;

His wounds where opened out and round

That chair was one Red Lake.

I swear his eyes said ‘Fire’! when all was still

Before my rifle spat that cursed lead. And I was picked, to kill A Man like that?