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The Goderich Signal-Star, 1977-10-06, Page 5GODERICH SIGNAL -STAR, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6I977 -..PAGE 5; kesve You could almost hear a pin drop in the pulsating newsroom last week. The hum of the teletype machines had cooled down and the, typewriters, whose clackety-clack of keys generally filled the room, were silent despite the fact that we were minutes to deadline. The editor wanted to have a word with us. Seems that management was upset. "Do you reporters realize that we are reaching deadline and we don't have one letter to the editor. Not one! What kind of newspaper is this?" The three reporters in the pulsating newsroom looked at one another in disbelief and their mouths dropped in unison. No letters to the editor. Surely there must be some mistake. Maybe it was just a cruel joke on the part of our readership. Several people probably sat down and wrote a scathing letter against the paper and its editorial policy but refused to mail it just to make us squirm.. The ploy was working. Before anyone could offer a reasonable excuse the editor continued, "What's a newspaper without letters to the editor? Nothing. It means we just aren't doing our job and we may well i ki the laughing stock of the typewriter set. What kind of a reporting staff have we got here that couldn't entice even one reader out of thousands to scribble a disgusting little note to the editor?" She had us there and refused to at- ' tribute any merit to my suggestion that perhaps Elsa Haydon was on holidays. "Nonsense", she continued. "What's happened to the three of you anyway? Didn't one of you bungle an assignment by forgetting to Toad the camera with film? Didn't anyone take a picture that was so fuzzy it was difficult to recognize the faces or at least get peoples' names mixed up under the picture so as to make ,,people angry enough to write a letter." We exchanged glances looking for a culprit but all our typewriters were clean. "It couldn't be that everyone got their facts straight in all the stories. Readers do get so irate about that,"" she com- mented. "Surely we must have tran- sposed some of the columns of type,so a story jumped around and was im- possible to read. We are at least capable of that on a regular basis." What is .so different about this week than any other week when letters to the editor pour into the office about our nasty little errors that seem to pccur without much effort. It has always been our editorial policy. There will always be readers who desperately scan every inch of newspaper copy in search of a little error or two. And we generally insert a small faux pas here and there just to please that small percentage of the reading public. It would be unfair to cater to one segment of our readership. And as we all hung our heads in shame in view of the fact that the Signal -Star would be published without one letter to the editor, we vowed that this week our facts would be distorted, our pictures fuzzy and we may even make up a Few names in identifying faces. We hope you find the mistakes. • After all, without a letter tothe editor, a newspaper is like being the best man at a wedding attired in a new tuxedo and beat up North Stars or rudely belching after' hors d'oeuvres at a political party fund raising dinner, while sitting at the head table. But as you can judge from the tenure of the column the reporters of the pulsating newsroom are rather subdued these days. So please write and tell the editor this column is the worst dribble any self respecting newspaper sub- scriber was subjected to. It would make us all feel better. E WEEK AFTER INFORMATION, BACKGROUND AND OPINION .es 0,0 gst 'Darcy McKeough road show d in Huron County again last week g residents and municipal ans with a clear, concise message anslated into severe budget cuts nicipalities, incial treasurer McKeough told officials from the counties of Perth, Bruce and Grey at a g in Wingham that provincial to municipalities will be cut this Provincial grants had increased percent in 1977 but will be cut to entthis year. -- eough. said that following school ants and early payments on 1977 HERE IN HURON per capita grants only $82 million remained for actual growth, a sub- stantial decrease from this year's in- crease of $186 million. He added that although it would be difficult for municipalities to come down to $82 million from $186 million, it was something that just had to be done. He said that mill rate increases are not encouraged among the municipalities but in order to meet the new budget demands may become a necessity. The cuts are part of the Provincial Gover- nmener plan to balance the_ Ontario budget by 1981. McKeough said he was only asking the municipalities to hold the line on spending in the same manner.. as the provincial government. He claimed that if the interest on the provincial debt was removed then the rate of growth would be limited to five percent. He said there was little that could be done about the debt and the cost of servicing it is u'p 17 percent this year. Wingham Reeve Joe Kerr said that McKeough was on the right track adding that government and municipalities were going into debt and paying interest for too long. His council counterpart, Tom .Deyell hoped his council could avoid a big tax increase by watching the budget closely. Following the McKeough speech, Goderich mayor Deb Shewfelt predicted a shocking tax increase for that corn- munity. He said that since the govern- ment grants have been held back to 6.3 percent it could mean a hefty mill rate increase in the town unless they got back to a meat and potatoes budget and left the fancy programs. Town administrator Harold Walls said claiming the taxpayers could face a tax hike if the town continues to offer all the programs that presently exist. Clifford said that preventative measures have to be taken, mainly to have an early review of all the budgets of the committees and determine their real needs. He said the finance committee will bring in an early draft budget to have sufficient time to analyze costs and make cuts. the mayor was not reactionary in his Councillor Dave Gower said Shewfelt„ statementand.claimed the town was noised poor judgment- in making the iri the best of shape financially. Goderich statement about the town taxes which finance committee chairman Bill totally upset town residents. Gower Clifford, reiterated Walls' statement added that it was impossible to make such a statement three-quarters'of the way through the year and that it was also a premature deduction to arrive at from McKeough's statements in, Wingham. Other members of council naturally refuted the mayor's 'Statements and there is no sense speculating until the budgets are submitted. One thing is sure though, and that is that all municipalities will likely have to cut programs and perhaps services from their budgets to meet the requirements. It also depends on the county and board of education spending that make up a good percentage of the municipal budget. Japanese certainly didn't pull nches. In fact they came right told Premier William Davis that , and Canada for that matter, expensive for any investment by ntry, me of our top businessmen had with the assessment of Ontario ada as poor places to do business st. The Japanese delivered the ws to Davis on his tour of the last week while the premier was o convince the Japanese that and especially Ontario was the cc to invest any extra ddllars PROVINCIAL POINTS they might have. Eiichi Hashimoto, chairman of Mitsui and Company, and a leading Japanese businessman, begged to differ with our Premier. Hashimoto said our province was plagued by many deficiencies with labor disputes, high taxes and low productivity among them. The director of economics for the Canadian Manufacturers Association, J. Laurent Thibault, said he has been trying to tell Canadians the same thing for many years. He added that Japanese businessmen put their finger right on the heart of many of our problems. Rohert Scrivener, chairman of Nor- thern Telecom Ltd., said that high taxes in Canada are making the United States a much more attractive location for investment and establishment of branch plants. Northern Telecommunications was North America's second largest telecommunication manufacturer with 26 plants in Canada and 12 in the United States. Scrivener claimed that a com- bination of higher wages, lower productivity, taxation and government attitude towards business is working against investment in Canada. He claims that it now costs 40 per cent more to build an identical production plant in Canada than it does in the U.S. Scrivener pointed out that in his business the cost per day worked is 50 per cent higher in Canada than in the U.S. He noted a wide range in the pay scales as well and said the $6 an hour average wage paid for telephone assembly in Northern's London Ont. plant compared with $4 an hour in its Nashville Tenn, plant. Also a worker at a Northern plant in Brantford earns $5.50 an hour compared to $3.60 in Creedmore, North Carolina. The taxes in Ontario are also higher. 1 Northern vice-president Roy Cottier said that a $25,000 a year management employee who is transferred to Canada would earn $1,000 less because of the tax structure, Our pulp and paper industry is now losing ground to foreign competition because of high wages, higher prices and lower profits. Canadian wages in the industry are also higher than in the U.S. In the last seven years the hourly wage of a pulp and paper employee has risen from $3.66 to $7.79 while the U.S. wage rose from $3.67 to $6.45. Because of the higher tax structure a company in Canada has to gross 150 per cent more than one in the U.S. to make the same profit. Under our system, profits in. the Canadian pulp and paper industry were half of what they would be in the U.S. mostly because of hidden taxes. Workers pay less income tax in the U.S. and a married worker with two children under the age of 16 earning $15,000 last year paid $2,123 in Ontario compared with $1,976 in New York State. One firm specializing in shopping malls is also turning to the U.S. for locations claiming that malls can be built for 20 to 30 per cent less in North Carolina than in Canada. CANADA IN SEVEN Is a significant amount of capable or smart. in Canada between the Some findirrgs of the survey indicated and French and a nationwide that people outside of Quebec regard the ndicates that it is getting worse. French Canadian as less trustworthy, less involved with world news, less in- rvey interviewed almost 2,000 volved in professional occupations, less ns in their homes in July and well-educated and more emotional. here is a feeling among French ns that they are discriminated in many fields and most notably even in their own province. On the other *;side of the scale the French Canadians view themselves as °more energetic, more trustworthy, more Canadians think French `compassionate towards their neighbors, h hs haa different value system more worldly and more aware of world etter. English also see themselves aso news, educated SociologistMa Martin Goldand farb saly id that a greater commitment to the. these attdudes form the basis for is and leadershialues. Alsir prejudice and discrimination, a not,.think the l<rench are as prejudice that has been reflected in the embers of Japan's ultra -leftist Y hijacked a Japan Air Lines liner with 155 persons aboard ay in Dacca, Bangladesh, Ito land and threatening to blow ss their demands were met. hijackers waited for their s to be met, rescuers in Kuala Malaysia, searched for victims uesday in the crash of a second tr Lines DC -8. Thirty-two bodies covered and there were 43 hil os ith four people missin . commande ed the kYo Plane about 4 ' s out of business community in Quebec and across Canada as well. But French Quebeckers see themselves in much the same light as English Canadians. As strong, hard working and energetic individuals adhering to the same work ethic. One of the major revelations of the study was that the two different language groups found a major break- down of understanding between themselves.. Almost 80 per cent of English Canadians and 50 per cent of French Canadians believe tJat. their understanding of each other's culture is limited and often very e90F Both side's are becoming confused,and neither side really knows what it wants. Goldfarb suggested that the fight for unity cannot be fought at 'the in- stitutional or political level but rather must involve a broad Kase of the population. But we must first come to understand each other. The study indicated that the English and French lack respect and un- derstanding for each other. Half of each group has the impression that English Canada is prejudiced towards Quebecor French Canadians. Three quarters of English Canadians and 60 per cent of the French Canadians believe that French Canadians are prejudiced towards English Canadians. WORLDWEEK Bombay and the airplane arrived in Dacca, 1,200 miles away, five hours later. Bangladesh officials refused permission to land but the pilot force landed the plane because he was quickly running out of fuel. Then last Thursday the masked hijackers freed five of their hostages, ordered breakfast and prepared for another day as the Japanese Govern- ment asked for more time to meet their demands. Following the release of the five prisoners, there were 151 people still reported on the plane including the hijackers. One of the released hostages, former American actress Carole Wells, said the terrorists were armed with guns and grenades and were terribly rough at first. She said that once negotiations began with the Japanese Government the hijackers became more relaxed. Wells said the hostages were denied food during the first 24 hours of the siege and were not even given permission to go to the washroom. Those still on the plane include 14 crew members and 132 passengers that included 10 other Americans. / A spokesman for the Japanese Cabinet said the government was trying to round up .one of the hijacker's ransom demands in New York. That demand was for 60,000 U.S. $100 hills, worth a total of $6 million. The other demand called for the release of nine prisoners from Japanese jails, known terrorists and comrades of the hijackers. The Japanese government has already canvassed the prisoners and two of them apparently refused to accept the offer of freedom. The cabinet met and said the hijackers' demands could not be met in time and were stalling for more time. The hijackers, who have been iden- tified as members of the ultra -leftist The prejudice will likely always exist but an overwhelming number of both English and French Canadians claim they are not prejudiced. But 26 per cent of the English Canadians openly ad- mitted to being prejudiced while only 13 per cent of French Canadians admitted to a prejudice. The reasons for the prejudice vary. English Canadians feel that French is being forced upon them and that the French do not care about Canada. The French have become prejudiced because of feelings of. mistreatment and domination by the English. Both sides now readily admit that negative feelings are. growing on both .Iapanese Red Army, have threatened to begin killing their hostages one by one, starting with California banker John Gabriel, unless the ransom money and prisoners were delivered. The hijackers had set a deadline of midnight last Wednesday, but by Wednesday afternoon the terrorists realized the demands would not be met on time and ordered breakfast for the following morning. The gunmen also finally allowed the passengers to at and go to the washroom. The hijackers released the five prisoners when the Japanese Govern- sides of the fence, The English are becoming anti -French and the French are becoming increasingly anti -English. And a good many Quebeckers believe that slowly they are being rejected by the rest of Canada. Despite the evidence of prejudice both French and English Canadians believe the differences can be worked out and there is a commitment to do that. Both sides also believe that the other is being catered to in the federal government and neither side claims to have enough in- fluence in the national affairs. The fact that both sides feel slighted in vagient -end influence in govern- eht, coulirbe a major stumbling block in'bur quest for unity. ment said it was willing to meet their demands. Despite the stifling heat in Dacca generators were hooked up to provide air conditioning to the plane. All of the passengers that were released were American citizens and included a pregnant woman, Kurt Krueger of Granada Hills, . California and a family of three from Glendora, California. The hijackers warned officials at the airport that anyone approaching within 200 yards of the plane would get shot. Security troops have cordoned off the runway at Dacca Airport. /),