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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Wingham Advance-Times, 1972-11-02, Page 4y A i..F1IfI.1. :.; }?•::::} :•:;:;:'.•r.L �:ti \y�.'•ti�.L {;:ti•:�.<•�� :1 ::::: } %tire �ti}ti•:{::`�;{ti ti;.::�vr:ti{:ti'''ts.;}.};�:��\; ?:}i:'.v� }{• }:v {:;:ti;:vti:� ,$:{{titi:s;:;.. L h h� L • L : f•:}:,:;:{{} 1. +.:, k S •\S S • S', tS • ••L. . back t Never, in the history of federal elections, ba`ve .Canadians survived such a deluge of political claim and counter -claim as they have in the past six weeks. It is significant that despite the barrage of words, most ob- jective observers believe that the electorate has seldom been Tess interested in the out- come. However, now that it's all over it will be interesting to see what practical steps the politicians are going to take to rectify those ills in national life which were given such de- tailed attention when the parliamentary seats were up for grabs. Pre-election promises have a' way of fading into the back- ground once the mandate has been estab- lished. • Most of the knowledgeable columnists and commentators agreed throughout the election campaign that there was a dearth of really significant issues. In fact, it was plain that some of the leaders went out of their way to manufacture issues—or at least to bring little known ones to public attention. Truthfully, what concerns Canada more deeply than anything else at the moment is priorities. Many of the issues brought to pub- lic attention, do, indeed, demand action on the part of the federal government --such as the plight of the family farm. The question of public transportation, 'or the alleged "cor- porate rip-off" on which Mr. Lewis based his entire campaign. In our opinion the number one issue fac- ing the government is the unbelievable im- balance between the need for dependable employees in every sector of the economy and the hundreds of thousands who are.listed as unemployed. Something is sadly out of whack and it is a --maladjustment which can—indeed already has—deeply affected the core of our nation. None of our major problems can be licked if we are to become a nation of bums who would rather I ive on handouts than work usiness for a living. It is no longer arty secret that the revised unemployment insurance plan pro- vides for such generous benefits that the in- centive to earn a living has vanished for many Canadians. Naturally this very subject was all but taboo during the time when the politicians were wooing • the voters. Since we do have about 700,000 Canadians enjoying a life of ease on the insuranht plan, no party was prepared to come r,out from behind the bushes and promise that half of that number would be obliged to accept employment or face old-fashioned hunger. From the poli- ticians' standpoint that is understandable— but now the courtship is over. With a.govern- ment established for the next four years, the question of who does the work in this country will have to be met„head on. Setting of sound priorities is the great need. Putting first things first—and right at the top of the list is the question of how many Canadians are to be permitted to live on the earnings of their neighbors. Both federal and provincial govern- ments are roaring their heads off about the spiralling cost of medical care. The steadily rising bill for hospitals and treatments must be halted, they say. They have a valid 13oint, but we have never heard any mention of a concrete plan to add another 3501000 tax- payers to the roster of those who; help to pay for health costs. And the 350,000 have jobs waiting for them as soon as they are faced with an ultimatum of "work or don't eat". Canadians do not begrudge one penny to the people who are in actual fact unable to work. Our economy is certainly strong enough to provide generous care• for those who, for one reason or another, cannot help themselves. However, a lot of us are growing increasingly enraged° by those who like to live it up on our sweat. Thebums are cert tainly not all in the'board rooms of the na- tions big corporations. Speaking of elections.. While we're on the subject, the Ameri- can presidential election campaign is some thing else again. In Canada the .pre-election wheeling and dealing was pretty well con- fined to domestic issues, but the American campaign has at° its disposal a real- political bomb—nothing less than a major war: This week it appears likely that a peace treaty may be signed with the governmentpf North V.ietn•amTatad–that the Nixon ad- gm•ini..0 a°4n will get the credit -'for ending conflict in which a vast number of Ameri- cans have long since lost any sense of pur- pose. Whether or not the treaty will be signed before voting day or after the election is the unanswered question. If the war is ended be- fore the public goes to the polls Mr: Nixon" will, to a great. many, be the national hero who brought an end to the conflict. On the other -hand, if the treaty has not been signed, • many voters will fear that a defeat of the present administration will jeopardize the. success of final negotiations and thus pro- long the war.. Either way Mr. Nixon has a great thing going. To suggest that peace -making negotia- tions are purely political in their intent is a serious allegation—but certainly the coinci- dence is so timely as to be almost miracu- -coos: l4,1 would. all .Joe . northing more than politically interesting except for the -fact that• the game is played with human beings as the pawns. Every day • of continued warfare costs hundreds of families in the ' United States, North and South Vietnam, the grief of personal loss. The guns still thunder and the bombs still fall... but Mr. Nixon looks very much like the president of the United States for the next few years. Addressing a gathering in Montreal last week the Hon. Mitchell Sharp enumerated, some of the benefits which have accrued from the United Nations in its 27 years of existence. His remarks provided a timely re- minder of the worthiness of an organization which many deride. Like its predecessor; the League of Na- tions, the United Nations has often been laughed at because it failed to prevent the outbreak of wars in at least a dozen places since the end •of World War Two. We are prone to forget, however, the tremendous worth of the UN in the light of its known shortcomings. United .Nations has done exactly what it was intended to do—provide a forum in which belligerent nations could at least talk about their differences before they started shooting. To say it has failed in this objective is simply untrue. How about the day the un- disputed leader of all the Soviets took off his shoe and hammered a UN desk with its hard, • heel to express his defiance of the rest of the World? It should be remembered that. the altercation ended while the famous shoe was the only weapon- bared in violence. The United Nations has fathered many other sub -organizations which , have achieved unbelievable good for the under- privileged all over the world' by ,providing food, medical aid, cultural stimulation,edu- cation and the tools requisite for self-help. In the military area United Nations sponsor- ship has sent successful peace -keeping forces to many places where outright war seemed inevitable—Palestine, and . Cyprus for two outstanding examples.. The League of Nations was laughed out of existence at the very time when it was most desperately needed and within a few years the entire civilized world was ablaze in the holocaust of the Second World War. Let us never make the same mistake with the only organization •we have which has the slightest chance of standing between man and eternal destruction. Puzzling procedure Sometimes the ways -of bureaucrats are difficult' to understand. Last week communi- ties in Western Ontario began to find dis- placed Asians from Uganda arriving in their midst in need of immediate assistance. ,No-, body seems to know why or under what plan the 'communities Save been selected. , There is no question of whether or not the refugee families are welcome. The vast majority of residents in this area are only too glad to help these dignified newcomers at a time when they have suffered sudden and drastic loss through no fault of their own. The only question is related to our own gov- ernment agencies and the lack of warning that preparations should be made to receive the visitors. Acknowledging the present drastic need for people who are willing to fill some of the employment gaps in Canada, the Asians who have skills and abilities will be a welcome addition, but one wonders whether any thought has been given to sending them to areas where suitable employment is avail' able.VMost of the families expelled by the merciless native government of Uganda were 'prosperous and self-reliant citizens of their homeland—the sort of immigrants this country needs. Hopefully we carl sort them out and give them, a fresh start wif!hopt too much blundering around in the backwoods of officialdom. THE WINGHAM ADVANCE -TIMES Published, at Wingham, Ontario, by Wenger Bros. Limited. Barry Wenger, President Robert 0, Wenger, Sec.-Treas. A po:ge of editorial opinion ' Thurs :v • •::•:: , r : •ti ::tiv: �•. Ltd r: r}. :f• . ti . : r •. ::tip: :•::tiS: • .•r. ..L ::::•• • :• . t... . r. • :•}'•: :,L•: :CCC• tiff':•}• • • • •.•:•:•:•••••••• • • •:•:,:•••••••••:•Ni••••••• •:•:.,S ••••.•n r, .How I Learned About Myself Bill Smiley A couple of weeks ago, while 1 was writing down' the date on my attendance pad, .I got a bit of 'a shock. It was October 13th. Then I realized it was Friday. Hey, my anniversary! On a gloomy Friday the. lath of October, 1944, I was shot down over Holland by German flak, crash-landed in a plowed field and was taken prisoner. I've been a little leery of Friday the 13th ever since, but wheq it also falls in Octobei , as this year, I feel a distinct chill and my first thought is that 1 should have stayed in bed all day, with the covers pulled over my head, to be safe from the searching finger of tate. It's ridiculous, of course. 1 don't believe in black cats, walk- ing under ladders, -broken mir- rors, the number 13, and all those old -wives' symbols of bad luck. Even so, I know some of my students wondered why I taught all day, that day, with both hands behind my back. What they didn't know was that I had my fingers crossed, both hands. Well, now that a reaicnnahmp time has” passed and the sky hasn't fallen in, I can look back on that day in 1944 with no more reaction than sangfroid, which. as any 'Englishman knows. means bloody cold, and I have one of those, 'so everything is fine. In retrospect, that day was not an unlucky, but a lucky one. At the time I didn't think so. Thad a date that night with a smashing blonde in Antwerp, and I was justly annoyed that the stupid way had interfered with my social life. But Looking back; -it was one of the luckiest days in my life. I still had miserable, •often wretched experience to go throw h. How- ever, it was one of thelmost in- teresting in my life, and I made seine fine friends and saw a lot of strange things. Also, my wing was losing from five to a dozen pilots'a weel .,My gw!t•,squadrop, ,Qf gig deep r is had lost nave Backhouse,, .f oiy Reek, ' "Taffy" Price, '`Mingle" Bell, and a week before I got it, one of my tent -mates, Freddy Wakeman, was killed. (A week after I got it, my other tent -mate went down in flames.) I had landed once with a bomb dangling, another' time with no flaps, .no brakes and 'thirty-six holes in mny. aircraft. So it was just a matter of time. • Member Audit Bureau of Circulatiolf Member Canadian and Ontario Weekly Newspaper Associations Subscription $10.00 a Year • $5.25 for Six Months, in United States $12:50 in Advance Second Class Mail Registration tration No. 0821 Return Postage Guaranteed d COlJNY3-2Y IDE Editorial. I wonder how rnany of you have wad the saine experience: believ- ing that the fates had singled you out for special punishment, and discovering, much later, that what seemed at the time a black cloud was really a silver lining in disguise. Of course,' the opposite can happen. Ask some of my friends who thought it was the luckiest day in their lives when they stood in front of the preacher with that • gentle, sweet, understanding and voluptuous young creature, and found themselves twenty-five -years later manacled to a fat, nagging shrew. I know, ,girls, it works both ways. Don't tell me that that handsome, charming young Adonis you stood up with is really the saine person as that pot-bel- lied, bald bore you're living with now, whose idea of a good chat is to rattle his paper at you and grunt.) But on the whole, life, except for those few unfortunates, the born losers, seems to even things out fairly. Twenty-eight years ago tonight 1 was.pi`etty blue and rniserable. After the most inept escape at- tempt in the annals of escape, I had been given a thorough going over and was Tying in a box -car, tied up, aching in every muscle and a number of bones, including /sow cue ? •r niy,nose bone, and shivering like a dog evacuating razor blades. For some reason, the Third Reich .had neglected to install a heating system, blankets and inattresses. The only way I could recreate the experience tonight would be to go out and try to sleep on the floor of my garage, which is of the wooden variety, with plenty of ventilation. Equally faulty was the catering system. There was nothing wrong with the waiters, except that they carried guns and wore big boots: But they were nue soulof cour- tesy. untying m)iy hands at each meal. It was the menu that. was , lacking. Not much variety. One item, and at some meals, not even one. The washrooms facilities were rather inadequate, too. But how many of you have, ever been tenderly helped down .onto a cinder embankment by a para- trooper, his ' arm around your waist, yours around his shoul- ders, to go to the bathroom? I was dragging one leg. It was good experience. 1 learn- ed to love black bread, wurst and. cabbage soup. I discovered that a single boiled potato, right out of the pot, was a dish for the gods. I learned how much I could take. And I learned to be thankful for exceedingly small mercies. Well - worth it. 'r:Ci•'r::;%: %::v tiS; <:i} :•:;:ffi �4'1.7:$.r;s::js rti$. r.: . r.•. BY HELEN ALLEN Numummulimem. f. .1t 10. Roy has not yet decided on a career for himself. But it would not be surprising if 'sonic one thought of steering this han(Iso.me youngster towards being a model. C'an't you see him pictured in the latest of boys' sports wear? That ‘%ould be' appropriate in other ways besides looks - because Roy is h sports enthusiast. ile plays all kinds of games with zest. !invites- being the favorite. Ile also enjoys riding his bike and thinks camping is the ideal life..%nother interest is buil(.l,,ing Models and he is fond of music. An unsettled period in his life resulted .in Roy spending 11 months in a Children's Residential ('entre. ile responded %ell to therapy 811d has been out of the cenlrt' for a year. Roy still Heeds patient and enlisting controls but is basically a delightful boy. outspoken and honest with a good sense 'of humor. Ile is lively. active. impish and competitive. hreuch-t'anadian.in descent, Roy is a'healthy. husky lad with big (lark eyes. brown hair and clear. tanned skin. Ile is in Grade 'four. below the average for his age but doing satisfactory' work. This likeable lad needs young. energetic. understanding parents. It %%mild be ideal i1• he could be the.ony child or one of a small family with no other children close to him in age. Roy is asking for "a family of mud own" and adopting parents. Will in- deed be rewarded if through warmth a11(I patience they Ca11 con% ince him tial he is wanted and loved. To inquire about adopting Roy. please write to Today's C• hild. Box gm, station K. Toronto. Fin. general adoption information. please contact your ('hildren's .lid Society. iw A New direction for Farm Policy In light of our recent edi- torial on the subject of con- trolled production and board marketing of farm products, this reprint from 'The Country Guide is of considerable interest. .Y: r "HOW CO/'O; . ,JUST $ECA USE OF ONE GUY, WE ALL HAVE 70 GO TO al SA? " 111': LOVES SPORTS What is Safety is getting up on' time during the week to avoid that last minute rush. Safety is taking bread from the toaster carefully, not prodding it out with a knife and fork. Safety is ar•r1vi►.gt at work on time and '„t drivii,g furiously, endaam,g'erm'mi' h+,•maa1 .,uveas. ,Safety is being. neat and tidy, cleaning up around the work bench. Safety i, respeA.' for one's fel- lows. being; '•i1urte')us and thoughtful. safety? 'afety is being orderly in alf we .dog' • Safety is respect for law'lbnd order and striving for good gov- ernment., - Safety seeks freedom without license,• justice without fear. • Safety is a way of life. Let us value our lives and the lives of others. To live safely is a or sane approach ,to'living. It costs nothing to seek safety. To disre- gard safety may cost us every- • thing, THE DRIFT OF PEOPLE off the farms and into the °cities has Ewen slowed dramatically ill the United States. Government statistics there show the decline in number of fanners is now 45,000 per year, less than half the 106,000 'per year rate of the 1961-68 period. - And, aiccording to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz, the rcason for that slowdown is simple. "We're build- ing markets. We've turned a down trend in farm exports into a marked up trend, we've lifted restrictive trade reg- ulations, we've fought tooth and toenail to keep the docks open fi)r trade and we've made negotiations for farm trade the subject of the highest level of ifiternational dis- cussions': Buts is convinced that -the key to a prosperous U.S. agriculture is ai. "sizeable, clepenclat)R, and expanding" export market. The. production of nearly 1 crop acre in 4 in the U.S. is exported, he notes, warning that any foss of these markets would be disastrous. The U.S. 1policy to brisk! export markets, which is enjoying immense success, reflects one important fact. The U.S. Government regards agriculture as one of the country's major resources. Auld Washington has provided massive support to agriculture in a program to enable farm- er; and agribusiness, as well as university. and •govern- nnentresearchers and extension people, to.coordinate their efforts in dev'el'oping aggressive production and matketing programs. �leunwhile, i n Canada, governments have responded to the farm income problem in 'a different way. Here, the focus of government policy has been marketing boards and supply management. The idea hast eento use controls and 'restrictions to get farmers to cut back on production, to ignore export markets and thus to get higher prices. In many cases, _government policy has' aimed for cen- tralized decision-making, taking decisions out of the hands of ,farmers and to nl i ng them over to bureaucrats. Controls Have Frustrated Development With a few products, milk for example, that are pro-. duced for the domestic. market, the plan has had some success. But, in too many cases, the controls have frus- trated and impeded farmers and destroyed the greatest resource of'Canadian agriculture—the initiative and judg- ment of fairners themselves. Now it is becoming clear• that supply management usually' results in some domestic markets being ignored, and world markets being lost entirely. Since about one-third of Canada's farm produce is exported, the plan offers tittle hope of solving the basic problem facing Canadian agriculture — the need for more farriers to boost•their output and sales so they' can survive and regain a measure of prosperity. With the U.S.°policy of building markets proving so successful, Canada could well give more serious thought to a similar policy. Such a policy wouldn't be totally new to Canada. Canadian Wheat Board Af inister Otto Lang has already developed a grains policy in which grain is being sold aggressively in world markets. And it is paying off hand- somely. Grain is now pouring out to world markets at a' record glace. And sales announced by the Wheat Board in recentdays indicate that torrent of,exports will continue unabated for at least another year. in a move to develop a similar policy on a provincial base, Alberta's new government has' taken a stance on agriculture this country hasn't seen in many years. Alberta is known as an oil and gas -rich province; it has a fast- growing population, burgeoning cities-, an emerging industrial base. But still, Premier Peter Lougheed has named Agriculture Minister Dr. Hugh Horner as deputy premier and made it clear he regards agriculture as a dynamic growth industry. Horner underlines that point, noting that agriculture contributes over 50% of the gross provincial product. To give stronger support to that industry, he is developing a strong marketing department; he's setting up a program of incentives to lure new process- ing plants to farm areas throughout the province; and he has declared an "Agriculture Week"' for the province the first week of October to focus attention on the contribu- tions farm families make to the province's economy. Alberta Attracts Buyers World -Wide That program is proving to be a souhd one. A stream of buyers from countries around the world is journeying to the province seeking out sources of supply for food products. Sales are being made. It's evidence that there are markets for the products Alberta farmers can grow, that an aggressive market-oriented thrust will pay off so long as farmers will produce the product and can find the means to move it to market. • , But Alberta isn't alone in taking a fresh look at" the opportunities represented by its major industry. The new Saskatchewan Government seems to be moving in the same direction, although more cautiously. Saskatchewan Agriculture Minister John Messer has indicated the direc- tion in which his farm policy will lead. The-irovince's agriculture must become more intensive, he says. Farmers must depend less on cereal grains and increasingly turn to livestock and specialty products, so they can expand without adding to their land base. He sees a large and expanding market for livestock. The demand for beef is growing faster than the continent's ability to produce it. Noting that many of Saskatchewan's beef animals now leave the province to be fed and slaughtered, he wants to see more of' them fed out in the province, and more processing done there to make jobs and help maintain and build Saskatchewan's population and economic base. These initiatives, by the Alberta and Saskatchewan Governments and by Wheat Board Minister Lang, repres- ent a beginning for a long -overdue new policy for Canada's agriculture. They set a direction that could be applied to much of Canada's agriculture, They may represent the' hest hope for farmers to regain their prosperity and pride. 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