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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes-Advocate, 1979-06-20, Page 4Page 4 Times-Advocate, June 20, 1979 Times Established 1873 _______ imes - Advocate wiliieferaA Here*,NarfkMMdhin 4 Him* u*X*»«»ttotv MUI Advocate Established 1881 Mainstream Canada Those Rising Tax Bills Amalgamated 1924 SERVING CANADA'S BEST FARMLAND C.W.N.A., O.W.N.A. CLASS 'A' and ABC Published by J. W. Eedy Publications Limited LORNE EEDY, PUBLISHER Editor — Bill Batten Assistant Editor — Ross Haugh Advertising Manager — Jim Beckett Composition Manager — Harry DeVries Business Manager — Dick Jongkind Phone 235-1331 (*CNA SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Canada $11.00 Per Year; USA $22.00 Published Each Wednesday Morning at Exeter, Ontario Second Class Mail Registration Number 0386 o :tNS, Not so handy Those handy disposable butane lighters are a hot item these days. Last year over 20 million were sold in Canada alone. However, we never realized just how hot until the March issue of the Construction Safety Association’s monthly publication The Counsellor reported the lighters can present a serious safety hazard. A workman was killed and another seriously injured when the disposable lighters they were carrying exploded on the job. One man died from injuries sustained when a spark from his welding torch struck the lighter in his breast pocket causing it to explode. Another man was carrying a lighter in his pants pocket when a spark from the welding torch he was using also struck the lighter. It exploded leaving him with severe burns to the hips and groin area. The company which employed these men now prohibits personnel working in its maintenance shops from carrying disposable lighters while on duty. IAPA strongly urges all its member firms employing welders to do the same. Slow, but safe There was more than one reason to cheer the efforts of Bryan Allen, the Californian who joined the ranks of aviation’s pioneers last week by pedall­ ing his fragile craft on the first man- powered flight across the English Channel. It was, of course, an example of human technology backed by a super human physical effort. Few people could comprehend the determination and strength required to pedal for almost three hours, fighting off air turbulence and leg cramps on the trip in the 55-pound craft. However, in view of the mechanical problems being experienc­ ed in many of the airplanes being put into the air by the world’s commercial airlines, the feat takes on even greater significance. There is a suggestion that many air travellers may be more prepared to trust the legs of their pilots to get them safely to their destinations than those huge, noisy engines that may fall off somewhere short of that goal. BATT’N AROUND Well all be millionaires Good move A tip of the figurative hat should go to Huron County’s elementary school teachers and the local board for con­ tributing to the production of commer­ cials promoting child safety. The commercials, the first on bus safety, with others to follow over two or three years, will be on local TV this summer. At the same time of course teachers are promoting their own im­ age and there’s nothing at all wrong with that. What better way for Huron teachers to show that they are respon­ sible and involved members of the community than by promoting child safety? The teachers should be commend­ ed for deciding against a program to promote their own profession with a rather hard sell approach, though that approach is perhaps understandable in these panicky times of declining enroll­ ment. Instead Huron teachers are going to the public with their concerns about children. Isn’t that what teaching is all about? Huron Expositor While many area residents are still buying the ever-increasing number of lottery tickets available to them in the hope of becoming instant millionaires, a chap out in B.C. has figured out that many of today’s graduates won’t have to worry about such gambles. He suggests that by the time today’s 20-year-old is ready to retire at the age of 65, he/she could be making ap­ proximately $1,323,136 per annum. And that’s not including fringe benefits! The proposition is that a young per­ son joining today’s work force need only acquire a job with a starting wage of $20,000. That may be out of range for many, but it is not inconceivable. Now, to hit that magic number by the year 2024, the person requires only a 10 percent pay hike each year, again not entirely inconceivable. However, before you head out to find that fountain of youth to enable you to stay in the work force, there is the usual “bad news” side to the ledger. The first thing you’ll have to do when you start earning over a million bucks a year is to go out and buy a fleet of trucks... just to carry your pocket change. Our mathematical friend suggests you could expect to pay, some of the following prices for goods and ser­ vices: hamburger $175 per pound (it’s on the way), shoes $2500, dining out $2000, house $2,500,000, gas (if there is any left) $50, car $250,000, beer $25 a bottle (tax included), trip to Hawaii $50,000, church collection $2 (some things never change much). And we will still have thousands of people on big salaries and expense ac­ counts whose energies are consumed in mediating, agitating and negotiation so that one group or another can stay ahead, get ahead, or catdh up. Is there any sense to it all? * * * While most people would be quick to suggest that wages and prices can never reach such proportions, it must be noted that back in 1934, no one would have been foolish enough to predict that the ensuing 45 years would see such great changes. We spent an enjoyable hour this week looking through the copies of the 1934 file to see what can happen over a 45- year period. Men’s shirts were selling for $1.19, eggs were averaging 15<£ a dozen, salmon 15$ a pound, all-wool blankets $5.95, coffee 39$ a pound, an eight-piece dining room suite $58, cattle were sell­ ing for $5.50 cwt. and sheep were $1 to $2.50. The county of Huron audit cost tax­ payers $300, while Usborne township paid their solicitor’s bill of $17.69. That, by the way, was for a four-year period. Wong’s Cafe offered a full course turkey dinner for New year’s at only 45$. . Salaries were generally in the $1.00 per hour category although Usborne township paid only that much for one resident who even supplied his own tractor for pulling the township grader. Hensall clerk James Patterson was paid $90 per month for his services. The only inflationary trend appeared Exeterto be in the matter of dogs, council instituted a $20 fee for residents who wished to keep a “police dog”. By W, Roger Worth The millions of Canadians who have believed instinctively that their tax bills have been rising at an inordinate pace since 1961 have been proven correct. A recent study by Vancou­ ver’s Fraser Institute indicates the average Canadian family’s tax bill is up a cool 302% since 1961. Worse, the study esti­ mates the increase would be a realistic 336% if the rising amount of government debt (deferred taxation) is included. More important, perhaps, are comparisons between tax increases and costs in other parts of consumer budgets. In 1961, for example, an average Canadian family had total before-tax income of $8,187 and faced a tax bill of $1,863 in hidden and direct taxes. Roger Worth is Director, Public Affairs, ' Canadian Federation of Independent Business. In the same year, the family would have paid $1,066 on housing, $1,305 for food, and a further $491 on clothing. Now consider what’s hap­ pened between 1961 and 1978. In the intervening period, total family income leaped 231% to$27,101.The consum­ er price index, meanwhile, jumped 134% partially as a result of increased housing costs (up 255% to $3,781), ris­ ing food expenditures (up 172% to $3,549), and higher clothing spending (up 200% to $1,474). I Perspectives 1 :l I m \ By SYD FLETCHER When we got married bragged to my wife that at least she was getting a fellow who could cook. What I neglected to mention was that all of my cooking had been done in large quan­ tities. Though I could make such exotic dishes as French dressing, it had been done in a ten gallon container, just a little more than we would need in our little apartment. My cooking experience had been at a summer army cadet camp. From three kitchens we fed about 2000 hungry youngsters. In charge of each kitchen were three or four regular army men, supplemented by fif­ teen or twenty ‘civvies’ like myself. First they put me in charge of the potato peeling machines, four of them. They looked like big cement mixers which would take about half a bag of ‘spuds’ at a time. By the time you finished loading the fourth machine the first load was done. Being a little slow on my feet seemed to be my problem with the boss, a crusty old sergeant who had been around the world and through two different wars. As I opened the first load’s door to let the skinned potatoes pour out, he walked in. To my horror and amaze­ ment and his censternation not one of the potatoes was bigger than a quarter. Anyway they were really white and my, were they ever clean. He told me to report to the dishwashing room the next morning. Picture with me a situa­ tion where there are eight hundred boys bringing egg- spattered dishes into a cen­ tral area. Usually there are two experienced fellows there to receive them. The cadets pile the dishes on trays, one dishwasher sprays them and then pushes the tray into an automatic washer while the other fellow unloads them. Now think of the same place with only one worker, me, totally confused and frustrated, as the cadets, who are only into the second day of camp and don’t know enough to put plates on the trays. Instead they stack them, silverware, garbage and all right up to the ceiling almost. And when the inevitable crash happened and broken china stretched from the counter to the dishwashing machine, who should just be walking through the door? However, I graduated from dishwasher to pot washer to garbage can washer that summer. Somehow the next summer I became a cook’s helper, That was the year of a lit­ tle excitement. Somebody forgot to top up the water in one of the 45 gallon double boilers. Honest, it wasn’t my doing. At an appropriate time (in the middle of the dinner hour) it exploded, blowing hot beef stew right up to the ceiling, releasing fine droplets of the grease that accumulates on a big kitchen’s ceiling over all and sundry, noticeably the sergeant who just happened to be coming in again. He was not at all pleased. He was I’ve ever curse in languages straight. the only person met who could seven different for ten minutes You have to respect such fluency though I swear that the celery on the table before him withered. I learned that if I wanted to escape his wrath at other times that all I had to do was work quickly and reasonably efficiently. Though I was never able to crack an egg in each hand as some of the regular men could do without a single dropped shell, I could still keep up with them on the grill. I found that I could pour the hot grease from thirty pounds of bacon out of a treacherous pan without bat­ ting an eye and many other jobs that I had never before dreamed of. They were good summers, and when the second one was over, I had paid for my first car, and all the burned fingers and scoldings seem­ ed worthwhile. Somewhere along the line I had grown up a little. Heading for the poorhouse I’m often glad that I don’t have four or five daughters waiting in the wings to be married. If I did I’d soon be in the poorhouse, as we used to call it. Or on welfare, as we call it now. Or mumbl­ ing my gums and my pension in one of those Sunset Havens, or another atrociously named place for old people who are broke. This opinion is a direct result of three middle-class weddings I have attended in the past two years. As an innocent bystander, I am aghast at the cost — financial, emotional, and stressful — of the modern straight, or traditional wedding. It’s not too many decades since you could send your daughter off in fine style for a couple of hundred bucks. Her mother made her dress, the church and the preacher was fre6. You rented the community hall, and the ladies’ Auxiliary catered the food. You could hire and orchestra for $25. And you still had $50 left to give the bride, your daughter, a little nest egg. My own wedding cost almost nothing. We were married in a chapel at Hart House, U. of T. No charge for the facilities. Five bucks for the preacher (larceny was creeping in). The organist was a school-mate who played in a burlesque house, so no fee. Borrowed a car from a friend for the honeymoon, $20. My wife bought a suit and her own wedding ring. I had supplied a diamond, courtesy of a friend who had been jilted, at half price. No ushers, no reception, no drinks. The best man and the maid of honour got a kiss. And away we went, just as married, with the same words (and still married), as the modern bride whose old man has forked out a couple of thousand minimum, whose mother has been brought to the verge of a breakdown over invitations, guests, hair-dressing, and a hundred other details, who is herself ever-increasing demands of her position as the big day approaches. With my own daughter, I was crafty. I asked her whether she’d like a church wedding and the usual reception, or a cheque for one thousand. A chip off the old block, she opted for the cheque, knowing she’d get the other, too, if she wanted it. I squeaked in just under $1500. She in­ vested the cheque in a car, which she totalled in a roll-over on their honey­ moon. No pun intended. At a moderate accounting, today’s dad is going for at least twice that before he sinks into his chair on Sunday night with a, “Thank God, ‘sallover.” On second thought, $3,000 is modest, the way today’s middle-class wedding has built up its hidden costs. It’s $25 for the preacher, unless he’s lost his dog- collar or been disbarred. Ditto for the drganist. Gowns for the bridesmaids, add $300. A donation to the church for the oil heating. Fifty bucks for in­ vitations. Five hundred minimum for new duds for him and the old lady. A “little’ going-away cheque for the bride, another five hundred. He’s up to nearly fifteen hundred before the preacher has even said, “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today...’’ If he’s a real big-time spender, he picks up the tab for the hotels atwhich guests who have come from afar at great touble and expense, lay their well-coiffed heads. Then there’s the open bar at the reception, the dinner with wine the orchestra or disc jockey for dancing, the open bar again, the towing charges * * * While many of our “older” readers will recall life in those days, such figures will be well beyond the com­ prehension of today’s teenagers. They may also be interested in know­ ing that the newspaper of that era not only carried the results of school ex­ aminations, but they did so to the point of listing the grades attained by students. There were even categories listed for those “below passing” and their names were carried right there on the front page for everyone to see. That’s all very much taboo in our modern educational system, of course, giving way to such things as “progress­ ing favorably” or ‘‘needs im­ provement”. However, kids who may be heading home with poor report cards in the next couple of weeks should be advised to head to the local library and look up the marks attained by their parents and grandparents as recorded in the T- A. It could provide them with some am­ munition to ward off punishment. Readers may be surprised at some of the poor marks several of our present leading citizens recorded. We’re not going to list any examples, but check­ ing out the lists certainly provided the writer with a few chuckles. for guests who mistook the ditch for the road on the way home. Call it fif­ teen hundred. Of course, there are compensations. With a big wedding like this, the bride receives about four thousand dollars worth of gifts. “Isn’t it obscene?”, ask­ ed the bride’s father at our latest, as we ooh-ed and aah-ed over the loot. It was. But that doesn’t do the old man much good. However, I guess it’s all worth it. A daughter, especially an only daughter is a gift from heaven. This last one was a lovely wedding. And I don’t use words like “lovely” casually. Kevin MacMillan, 20, grandson of sir Ernest MacMillan, one of Canada’s great men of music, married Anne Whicher, 18, whom I have known since she came from the hospital in a pink blanket. They are very young. Good. Both deep into music. We had a beautiful Ave Maria, sung by Cousin Kathy, and an excellent string ensem­ ble, before the wedding and during the interminable time when they are sign­ ing the register, and during dinner’ Class. Anne was kissed and cozened by dozens of cousins, armies of aunts, and hordes of hooligans, like me. She took it in her stride, as she will life. For my wife, the wedding was a chance to gabble at 500 words per minute, with old friends from school days. She loved it. For me, it was being assaulted by large ladies of indeterminate age who still had that elusive beauty, fairly well camouflaged, of twenty years ago, and who still thought I could dance till dawn. I loved it. Good wedding. % The fatter tax bills, on the other hand, outpaced all these, rising 302% to $7,486 in the 17 year period, or 336% to $8,123 if government deficits are included. It’s important to note that during the interval some costly government programs were initiated, shifting some spend­ ing away from the private sec­ tor. Two examples, the national health care scheme and a major expansion of government support for senior citizens. Nevertheless, other govern­ ment spending (and taxation) has increased dramatically over the years. The study also provides some insight into methods of tax collection and a possible reason for the relatively muted public reaction to the changes. Says the report: “While most Canadians are used to considering income taxes as the most significant taxes they pay... other taxes account for a larger fraction of the total tax bill”. The Institute points out that in 1978 the average family paid income taxes of $3,134, yet other taxes - ranging from oil and motor vehicle taxes, to amusement and property taxes - amounted to $4,352. In other words, taxes other than income taxes - many of them of the hidden variety - account for nearly 60% of the total tax bill of the average Canadian family. ------—-------------------------------- memory lanej 55 Years Ago The Blanshard Mutual Telephone system, a recently organized com­ pany, having secured a sufficient number of sub­ scribers has purchased the St. Marys, Medina and Kirkton Telephone Com­ pany, according to an an­ nouncement made recently. The purchase price was $68,000. Misses Lyla Ballantyne, Anne Allison and Agnes Fenwick of New York City, are spending their vacations at their respective homes here. The many friends of Rev. H.J. Armstake, of Sum­ merland, B.C. will be pleased to know that he has been awarded first prize in the contest on Christian Stewardship, conducted by the department of finance of the Methodist Church. Mrs. Gladys Balkwell, of Winnipeg is visiting at the home of Mr. William Leavitt. Mrs. Anderson and son of Sault Ste. Marie, are visiting with the former’s mother, Mrs. Delbridge in town. 30 Years Ago Wednesday evening Hon. Leslie Frost, Premier of Ontario addressed a large gathering seated in the bandstand of Exeter Com­ munity Park in the interests of Elgin McKinley, the Progressive-Conservative member for Huron-Perth. Grading of the site for the new $25,000 Community Centre at Hensall is being done this week. It will provide a standard-size ice surface for hockey and skating as well as meeting rooms for Boy Scouts, etc. Roof on the newly added grandstand and rest rooms will be installed at Com­ munity Park before the annual race meet here July 20. Exeter garage operators met Thursday evening and decided to close Wednesday afternoons. The one open the previous Sunday will also be open Wednesday afternoon. 20 Years Ago By capturing the prize for the highest aggregate marks in grade 12, SHDHS Queen Jane Horton of Hensall completed a “grand slam” in the field. She has won the honour in each of the four years it has been awarded. During the ladies night program of Exeter Kinsmen Thursday, past presidents Ralph Genttner and Irvine Armstrong received their ninth year attendance pins. Their wives, both past presidents of the Kinette club received seventh year pins. All four are charter members of their respective clubs. The promotion of F/O John A. Cann of Exeter to the rank of Flight Lieutenant has been announced by the RCAF. Since 1956 he has been serving with the directorate of Public Relations at Air Force Headquarters, Ottawa. Next week Huron County Health Unit will officially complete 10 years of public service. The unit now has a staff of 15. 15 Years Ago Winds which hit a peak somewhere between 80 and 90 m.p.h. lashed through the area Tuesday and left a trail of flattened barns, trees, TV aerials and ripped roofs and shingles off numerous barns, sheds and houses. Don “Boom Boom” Gravett, Exeter’s recreational director for the past four years has handed in his resignation to the RAP committee. The old Exeter Opera House, once a favourite spot for the holding of plays, concerts and dances, has been sold by McKerlie Automotive to Fred Darling, owner of the local IGA store. Mr. and Mrs. Henry Adkins, R.R. 2 Hensall, celebrated their 45th wed­ ding anniversary, Saturday night when all the members of their family gathered at the Dominion Hotel,-Zurich for a dinner in their honour.