The Rural Voice, 1979-04, Page 16A matter of principle
by J. Carl Hemingway
Playing politics
I'm afraid that a Federal Election will have been called by the
time you read this and I will be accused of playing politics.
Therefore 1 am going to tell you what I am going to vote for.
Having watched many election results I am convinced that a
great many voters cast their ballots for the party they dislike the
least.
Very often this dislike is based directly on the leadership and
occasionally a party member who has offended them personally
in some way.
I hope to make my decision on a different basis. I hope to be
able to discover that the different parties have developed a
definite platform and how their ideas will be put into practice.
So far, I have heard a great deal about what the leaders are
going to do but very little about how the objectives are going to
be achieved.
If I want to get a field ploughed this spring I'll never get it
ploughed unless I arrange to get a tractor and plough (or a team
of horses or oxen and plow) and do it myself or make definite
arrangements with a "custom" outfit.
Ideas and promises are great but utterly useless unless there is
a good plan of action to go with them.
I hear and readcontinually about the terrible threat of foreign
ownership of Canadian industries and resources and that
something has to be done about it.
So far all smoke but no fire!
There is a small glow of hope!
One leader has dared to promise that he will put restrictions on
the investment of Canadian capital abroad. It is a good idea and
one that many countries used after the war. It was used by
Britain, Germany and many other European countries in order to
recover from the war damages. Even yet it is difficult for
persons, who want to come to Canada, to get their money out of
their present home -land.
I have heard many economists state on radio and T.V. that
there is more Canadian money invested abroad than "foreign"
money invested in Canada.
Wouldn't it be reasonable for Canadians to invest in the
development of Canadian industry rather than sell the raw
product and invest in foreign companies to process it and finally
buy the foreign - manufactured product back?
We are presently selling huge qualtities of coal to Japan and
boat loads of scrap metal only to buy it back in the form of new
cars.
I jhave no idea of the sale value of a boat load of scrap metal
and even Tess idea of the purchase price we pay to get it back but
I'm sure there is a profitable difference for paper.
I don't know much about processing of products except in the
area of farming.
Farmers are supposed to be producers and the processor chair
connects (for a price) the producer and consumer.
I disagree!
I'm no great philospher or theologian but my mind with its'
limited capacity has to accept that God somehow produced our
earth out of nothing and is therefore the only "producer".
Somehow my ancestors discovered that by some process,
plants can manufacture the nutrients in the soil into a great
variety of products and man can promote this processing action
PG. 14 THE RURAL VOICE/APRIL 1979
ATTENTION
MR. FARMER
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you grow your
BEST FOR LESS
Come in and order your fertilizer
before the Spring Rush
Order your
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NOW
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- and
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