HomeMy WebLinkAboutClinton News-Record, 1971-04-29, Page 4T Atri olgzaittna ed H E 'CLINTON NE W VIA E HURON NEWS-RECO
Eetablishoe eel Established I ate
Clinton News-Record l .
A member of the Canadian Weekly Newspaper,Association,
Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association and the Audit Bureau
of ateulation (ABC)
Published every Thursday at
the heart of Huron t minty
Clinton, Ontario
Population 3,476
ME HOW
OP RADAR
IN CANADA
'KWH gill, PitItiLtION — Editor
, HOWARD AITKEN — General Manager
second class- mail
registration number * 0811
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Letters
to the
Editor
The $ditor:
On behalf of the Huron Unit
of the Canadian Cancer eoelety,
I wish to thank the sponsors of
Spring Review and those who
Attended, for their generous
donation. Your contributions
are very much appreciated.
Ina Mae Durst,
• President,
Huron Unit,
Canadian Cancer Society,
The editor,
Anyone who looks for
communists under the bed has
got to be a nut! Most people are
kept busy enough spotting them
on our University campuses, in
government departments, High
Schools, School Boards and
P.T.A., civil rights groups and
"liberation" fronts — not to
mention those masquerading as
"liberals," "Progressives" or
"peace" promoters.
Between keeping an eye on
the communist press,
"friendship," "reconciliation"
and "co-existence" groups, not
to mention draft dodger and
deserter committees, there's
hardly time to look under the
bed.
If we did, we'd probably find
a gutless and apathetic majority
huddled together in fear of the
"smear" while others fight their
battle in the Cold War of
subversion, infiltration and
betrayal.
Yours sincerely,
Patricia Young,
Vancouver, B.C.
I hand't seen Old Dave since
last autumn, When he came
down the path to the cottage I
realized how much I'd been
missing him. I was in chaos —
that familiar chaos of opening a
cottage for a summer to come —
and Old Dave grinned at the
sight.
"Man's perpetual war with
the land," he observed. "And
yet you look a lot more content
at it than you've been sounding
of late in that column of yours.
Seeing you like this no one
would guess what a tortured
mind lay behind that low
forehead.'
"Don't be insulting," e edict,
"Worry is my business,"
"Well," Old Dave said, "you
certainly reflect with great
fidelity the age of discontent.
Seems to me almost everyone I
meet is afflicted with anxiety, If
old Diogenes were around today
he'd spend his time looking for a
serene man."
"A serene man," I suggested,
"is usually a dull man."
-"That certainly seems to be
the philosophy of the day," my
old pensioner friend agreed,
girl, Some fool down on the
runway started firing red flares.
I went around again, and
again he did it, I had checked
the windsock carefully this time,
so knew it was his fault, not
mine. On my fourth approach, I
did the usual cockpit check and
no red flares went up.
I rolled to a stop and the
squadron leader was standing in
his jeep, his face a sort of
mulberry shade, And once again
the insensitivity of senior
officers was displayed. Not only
did he call me a stupid clot who
should be sent back to Canada in
a strait-jacket, but the dirty dog
cancelled my weekend pass. And
all because I'd forgotten one
little item on my first three
approaches: putting my wheels
down.
Thee there was my squadron-
comrearider in France. I was his
No. Two and we'd made a
dive-bombing attack, firing our
cannon as we dived, which was
our wont, not to hit anything,
but to bolster our nerves. He
shouted something on the way
down, but thought it was
something 'silly like, "Hammer
the Hun," so paid no attention,
closed my eyes, as was MY
wont, and squeezed the tit.
When we landed, he was in a
terrible flap because I was the
only one who had dropped his
bombs — on the wrong side of
the bomb line.
I thought it was damn poor
navigation on his part. I think
what really bothered him was
that I'd shot off a bit of his wing
on the way down.
Then there was the ridiculous
squadron leader in flying 'control
who made me land with a
hang-up. In thoee days a hangeee
was not some trivial emotional
disturbance. It was a fused
bomb, dangling by Its tail from
your wing.
I tried to get rid of it over the
sea. Nothing worked. Hopefully,
I suggested, "Shall I bail out?"
His reply: "Don't be silly. We
need that aircraft." Note were
cheap, aircraft expensive.
One bounce on landing and it
would be meat, me, all over the
landscape. And I was always
known as Two-Bow-tee Smiley.
Did you ever see a mouse with
kid gloves on, walking on
eggshells? That's the way I
landed. But what hurt was that
he wouldn't let me land on the
metal air-strip, as he didn't want
it torn up when I blew up, I had
to land on the bumpy verge
beside the strip.
Just a few of the examples
gave to the senior Officers in 'my
audience of the borte-headedeess
of senior officers. They took it
well, because, of course, they
didn't understand. I offered to
step into the alley, afterwards,
with any senior officer, Provided
he was over 80. Two ancient
brigadiers had to be forcibly
restrained.
Old Dave went into the
cottage to, say hello to my wife,
who was in considerable chaos ,
herself, and when he rejoined me
I was ready for him,
"I've been thinking about
your sermon for the day," I said,
"and wondering if you wouldn't
subscribe to the theory that in
today's world ignorance is bliss."
"I know you're wrong," Old
Dave said, smiling at the detours
my mind had taken, "but
sometimes I think that myself,
Certainly it's bliss for those who
are genuinely ignorant and not
using it as a shield."
, e"Tbe. °nix, really el.be.PPY
person I know is a. woman who
never reads the papers," I said.
"She lives for her family and her
pleasures and her routine, She
has an empty head, Dave, but
it's sunny up there. She's a
model of serenity."
"It won't work for us," Old
Dave said. "The only true
happiness comes in struggle, in
trying to better yourself, in
searching for truth. You've got
to participate or give up hope
entirely,"
"It's a heavy old world for a
man to carry On his shoulders,"
said,
"Yes, but it's not bad," said
Old Dave, "if you just use one
shoulder,"
10 YEARS AGO
April 27, 1961
The Clinton News-Record
Charles Brown acted as
chairman of the Clinton Public
Utilities Commission meeting in
the Board Room of the ruc
Building as hydro, water and
Sewage services were authorised
for several residents,
Elmer D. Bell, Ca„C„ Exeter,
has been appointed honourary
lieutenant-eolemel of the 21st
Field Artillery Regiment, Royal
Canadian Artillery (Militia) at
Wingharia Mr. Bell had
ornmanded that same regiment
from 1952 to 1966 as LeiteCol,
G. W. Montgomery, former
agricultutal representative for
Huron County, will officially
open the 116th annual Seaforth
Pall Pair, Mr, Montgomery left
the service in 1957 to take a
position with the C.N.R. in
Toronto, and has since January
Last week I had a rare chance
to do something I've always
wanted to do, and I seined it
with both hands and my tongue.
I was speaking to the VImy
branch, 'Royal Canadian Legion,
at its annual observance of the
battle for \rimy Ridge, The
Vitny branch is unique in that
nearly all its members are
ex-officers of the Canadian
armed forces,
On the program for the
banquet was printed a list of the
executive and the past
presideets. It contained
bounty of Brigadiers, a
confusion of Colonels, a mess of
Majors, a wedge of Wing
Commanders and a scattering of
Squadron Leaders. Senior
officers. Sitting ducks.
Ever since my days as a
fledgling fihter pilot, I've
enjoyed a firm conviction that
there is no possible way anyone
can pound anything into the
head of a senior officer.
Here was a golden
opportunity to prove my theory,
and I sailed into it with gusto. I
didn't use a phoney survey or a
lot of statistical facts, but
personal experience, and I let
them have it with both barrels.
As a flying student, I first ran
into the obtuseness or the senior
officer, This wing -commanders
the chief flying instructor,
nearly had a stroke because I'd
tried to land from one end of
the runway while another
student was trying to land from
the other. How was I to know
Alleaaavind had changed 180
titriVea since I'd taken ortee
t*zring advanced flying
ilwinitig in Segland, a slinilar
ileilietrrerice deepened My,
41110Victioti, I was coming in to
lied, every sense alert end My
blind dallying with a 12-hour
pass and a chubby Land Army
4
April 15, 1971
The Editor:
We wish to appeal to your
readers for help in a program to
preserve Canadian history. Many
settlers in the Canadian West
came from the older provinces,
so the Glenbow-Alberta Institute
of Calgary is now trying to
discover any old records which
might exist among eastern
families. Items such as diaries,
letters, photographs, drawings,
political or business papers, and
artifacts dealing with the west
are probably lying in many attics
in your area. Some may deal
with the .fur traders, Mounted
yam inisaionaries, railroaders
or iatichehalWhile otheis may be
letters from relatives who
homesteaded on the prairies.
If such items are sent to
Glenbow, they will be preserved
and made available to historians,
Glenbow has two museums, an
art gallery, library and archives
devoted to this purpose. By
knowing our past, we hope that
people will understand their
country and have greater pride
In being Canadians.
If any of your readers have
western items or know where
they may be found, we hope
they will write to Director of
History, Glenbow-Alberta
Institute, 902 - 11th Avenue,
S.W., CALGARY 8.
Hugh A. Dempsey
been agricultural development
officer for the CNR,
15 YEARS AGO
April 26, 1956
The Clinton News'Record
Mrs. Sarah Cooper is 94 years
old today, Thursday, April /6.
Actually her birthday was
celebrated last Sunday, when her
three sons and families, joined in
a family party at the home of
her son-in-law and daughter, Mr.
and Mrs, A. E. Bond, Clinton,
Mr, and Mrs, Robert Freeman
quietly celebrated their golden
anniversary on April 11, at their
home on Victoria Street, Clinton
with a family diluter.
The former Sarah Marshall
and Robert Freeman were
married by the Rev. Manning,
Minister -of Wesley-Willis In
1906,
The Clinton Public Utilities
Commission regular meeting was
post-poned from Tuesday until
tonight, owing to the
Convention of Waterworks
l&e Page Five/
047
The call of the open road
Ott being serene
How Smiley dealt triih officer types
,"but, of course, it's nonsense,"
He lowered himself to the pale
grass and stretched out full
length, a rare thing for a man of
76 to do. "Never was a time
when people were so eager for
peace of mind or put so many
obstacles in their way," he said.
"We're fast becoming a race of
worriers. A man who looks for
happiness nowadays may start
his search on an analyst's aouch
at fifty dollars a session. Yet ail
he has to do is reach out for it
• with hie hands."
I joined him on the grass,
e accepted the makings of a
,.,,cigarette anct ltifIcily ,,,raledd a
ia pretty good one,, • ,
"A man who's contented
these, days is just kidding
himself," I ventured, "It's an
unsettled and unsettling world.
. We all have a stake in it. You
can't just conveniently look the
other way."
"Certainly not," Old Dave
said thoughtfully. "I think a
man should know what's going
on. He should evaluate events in
his own mind and find their
historical perspective. If he's
built that way he should
participate. But that shouldn't
put a perpetual cloud of gloom
over his head. It's one thing to
be troubled by these things, but
quite another to be defeated by
them,"
"You think we take world
affairs too seriously?"
"Too emotionally," Old Dave
corrected me, "I'm good and
tired of people who react to
every day-to-day step in history
by pessimism or panic, who sort
of stand around as helpless
spectators, wringing their
hands."
"I think that's
said. ""Most
?Ii:ifse$164 ien 6 ard c about . . the way things are going feel
frustrated by the inability to do
anything about it. That's the real
trouble. It's beyond our
control."
"Perhaps so," Old Dave said,
"but it's no contribution to
simply be miserable about it. I
think such people have got to
show some courage, courage to
understand the situation and to
do what they can do and
courage to find their own peace
of mind in spite of it."
4 Clinton -Nevve,Record, Thursday; April 9, 1971
Editorial comment
Independence a the way
DareY McKeough's declaration of
independence from the federal
government Monday leaves the way open
for some interesting thought.
In his budget speech Mr. McKeough,
the new Provincial Treasurer, brought out
the old provineial complaint that the
federal government has too much money
for its needs while the provincial
government finds it hard to meet costs.
One of the weaknesses of the old British
North. America Act, was that the programs
it gave the federal government to
administer decreased in importance and
the revenue producing resources have
risen slowly while the provincially
administered programs have soared in
number and cost while revenue sources
have not.
The federal government has helped the
provinces out in these areas with
shared-cost programs where they threw in
part of the cost but, naturally, in return
demanded some say in how the money
was being spent, Mr. McKeough has
accused the federal government of
centralizing power and has declared
henceforth the provincial government will
opt out of all shared-cost programs in
favour of a straight cash grant from the
federal government,
But while the provinces have been
crying hard times for some time now,
they have always had means of increasing
their own revenues. Ontario could, for
instance, increase the retail sales tax again,
or it could institute its own income tax
system. Such steps would, of course, be
very umpopular with the electorate.
In recent years the governments of
John Roberts and now William Davis have
been increasingly citical of the tax
structure and even of federal fiscal
policies. They have claimed that the
money raised in Ontario, by far the
richest province in Canada should benefit
Ontarions, not be spent outside tfie
province in the Maritimes or Quebec to
tempt industry to relocate or help finance
some new manufacturing program.
Consider, though, the predicament of
the municipal governments. Costs to
cities, towns, villages and townships have,
if anything, been rising even faster than
costs of .services at the provincial level.
Yet the municipality has been in the
straight jacket of having only one
available source of revenue, property
taxes,
Like the federal government, the
province has helped out its junior
governments by shared-cost programs in
highways, water and sewerage, education,
hospitals and welfare. And, in return for
their donation the government has asked
for (or just taken) more say in the running
of programs.
Using the dollar as a lever, the
provincial government has virtually
re-organized the whole structure of
municipal government and is moving
toward the final step of regional
government on a very much take it or else
basis.
But suppose we were given the option
to opt out of shared-cost programs,
Suppose we made the same claim as the
provincial government that moneys raised
here were rightfully ours,
Figures aren't available on just how
Much money the government takes out of
Clinton in a year but it is obvious to
anyone who knows the town and can add
that the money that goes out of Clinton
through provincial retail sales tax,
corporation taxes, gasoline tax, medicare
premiums, licences, L.C.B.O, taxes and
the provincial section of income tax is
considerably more than the amount the
province puts back into the town through
grants and subsidies,
We have been brain washed for many
years into thinking that small towns are
uneconomical. Our industries have moved
away to the cities because they say it is
uneconomical for them to operate so far
from their market. When industries left,
so did people because they had to have
jobs. We have a vague knowledge of the
economies of scale so we accept the fact
that because cities are larger, they must be
more economical, In our part of the
country we have been living with this
notion for so long we seldom question it
But there is another law of economics
most people don't know about called the
law of diminishing returns which states
that once a unit reaches a -certain size, the
cost of adding more becomes more
expensive, not less,
Our cities have reached this point now,
People in Toronto may try to brainwash
us into believing that they have all the
money and are carrying us on the
financial backs but if one really looks at
the situation the other side of the truth
comes out. Sure it is more economical for
industries to be closer to their market, but
only because we help pay for the services
they need there,
Huge cities such as Toronto are
economic dinosaurs, The province is
pouring more and more money into the
cities, just to keep them livable. Highway
401, for instance, has been under
construction for longer than most People
can remember, and is barely able to stay
ahead of the demand for more space for
Toronto commuters. The cost of
construction on that road used to be
about a million dollars a mile but it has
doubled at least a couple of times since.
New highways are being pushed through
the centre of the city where property
costs alone amount to close to a million
dollars an acre,
There are subways to be built at even
higher costs and the normal department
of highways ,subsidies for street
construction and reconstruction, but at
inflated Toronto prices, There is the GO
comuter system. Costs of property for
schools is higher and construction costs
boost the cost of education. Welfare and
public housing costs are enormous in a
city where .even a working man finds it
hard to pay his bills, let alone ever
thinking about buying a house.
Then to top it all off, the province
builds showplaces such as the Ontario
Science Centre and Ontario Place, using
some of our money, but with most of the
benefits going to the city, And even worse
is the government proposal that would use
provincial money to build a lakefront
community that would house 40,000
people, people most likely to come from
the rest of the province.
Then there is the less tangible gift of
the benefits of the goverhment itself with
its 60,000 employees all drawing salaries
which they are spending in Toronto, thus
generating more business in the city.
Why should we in Clinton go on
supporting Toronto, a city that has taken
so many of our people and industries
away? Why should our money build more
highways and subways and housing
projects in Toronto when our own streets
need paving, we need more street lights
and many, many other things that we
can't afford to give ourselves on revenues
from property taxes. Why not hold back
all moneys from the provincial
government for the things we need?
The answer is of course, that we can't.
The provincial government wouldn't let
us. And even i if they did, we would be
sowing the seeds of the destruction of our
nation because others would follow suit
and it would split the country into a
thousand little fragments with no ties to
bind them together,
Yet the course set by the provincial
governments is much the same. By
thinking only of their own desire for more
power, the provincial governments are
actually dividing Canada into 10 smaller
units, each with its own system of
education, highways, language rights,
welfare, etc. etc. etc. with no uniform
federal guidelines to hold them together.
The recent chicken and egg war is bringing
tariff walls between the provinces back
into being and soon we may be back in
the same situation the Fathers of
Confederation faced when they met in
Quebec more than a century ago.
The provincial governments claim the
federal government is hungry for power,
yet at the same time they steadily increase
their power over the municipal
governments. Something has to give, and
if the provincial governments get their
way, it may be the country that gives, We
need strong municipal governments to
provide everyday requirements and we
need a strong federal government to hold
the nation together, But in this age of
instant communication, do we really need
provincial governments in between, with
their finger in every pie? Couldn't the
services they supply be handled by either
the federal or municipal governments?
On VIPs
who raise
their salaries
Members of Parliameet, how can it be
That it takes years and years to ease taxes for me
Or to fie it that I can buy Mote for my cash
When to raise your own salaries it's done in a flash?
When the unions suggest they need more pay to live,
And the management says it has no more to give,
They sit down at a table and talk or they strike,
But the M,P.8 just vote for their own salary hike,
It's said tiothing'e sure except taxes and death,
So we'll have to pay taxes as long as we've breathe,
But there's one other thing 1 am Sure Of f 1 fear,
There won't be a general deport this Yea,
by
THE tlAtib OF SAYPIELO