Price War

All across Canada, housewives girded themselves for a war on high prices. They went from door to door, getting signatures by the thousands on petitions to the government for more drastic controls. There was talk of a "prices train" which would start from the West, pick up delegates along the way, and roll into Ottawa with a mighty force of embattled consumers.

In Halifax, the campaign was led by hardworking, hard-talking Mrs. Mary Beatrice Murphy, who kept order at consumers' meetings with a rolling pin. There were 1,500 petitions around the town, growing longer as signatures were gathered at grocery stores and bingo halls.

In Montreal, 125 protesters met in the dingy, third-floor hall of the Hotel & Restaurant Employees' Union. The chairman, Mrs. Ethel Leigh, told sadly of a delegation which had waited on Finance Minister Douglas Abbott in Ottawa. One delegate had said she had eight children, to which Abbott cracked: "You must do pretty well out of family allowances, eh?" The delegation was not amused. Said Mrs. Leigh: "We intend to increase pressure on the government until they realize that the people of Canada are serious in their protests. We mean business!"

To build up pressure, the meeting set a goal of 250,000 signatures in Montreal. Delegates also started a war chest to buy newspaper space and radio time.

Ottawa gave one more small sign last week that it could be moved. With cabbage selling (where it could be found) at an average of 15-c- a lb., Doug Abbott lifted the import ban, took steps to bring the price down to 9-c-.

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