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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1954-7-7, Page 2PLAIN HORSE SENSE .. Iiy 1.. MOB With the seventh ordinary meeting of t h e International Il'ederation of Agricultural Pro- ducers (IFA?) ended a short while ago in Nairobi, Kenya, it nliould be of interest to Ontario farmers to learn of its origin and background. The following historical sketch of IFAP and appreeiation of its significance in international af- fairs is taken from the British Farmer, -official organ of Na- tional Farmers Union, published in London, England. Itlfolding the Stage. Today the farmer is in the centre of the international stage. He is important to the world, for he feeds the world. Without him the giant industrialized countries could not exist, be- cause factory workers have to eat The farmer needs an interna- tional voice to make sure his problems are clearly appreciated In the councils of nations. That voice is the International Federa- tion of Agricultural Producers. This world farm organization has no connection with govern- ment or with polities. It is a non-governmental, non-political body representing the farmer on the international stage. IFAP tells governments of the world, through the United Nations, what farmers are thinking, what they want, It is recognized by the UN and the Specialized .Agencies as the authoritative voice of the farmers — the voice of about two-thirds of the popu- lation of the world. !torn In England IFAP is comparatively young. The proposal for a world farm. organization had been voiced :many times since the war, but It was not until 1945 that the Idea took hold. In that year a group of British farm Ieaders, headed by Sir James Turner, •toured the world and discussed. the proposal with farm organi- sations In many countries, Thier suggestions met an enthusiastic reception. An international con- ference was held in London in May, 1946, and at that con- ference IFAP was born. The farmers of thirteen na- tions brought IFAP to life. To- day 27 nations are represented through 38 farm organizations. IFAP enjoys the highest con- sultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council, its Regional Economic Cornmissions, the Food and Agriculture Organization, and the International Labour Office. The IFAP European Committee, Of which Mr. F. It. Scott, of the NFU is Vice -Chairman, is re- cognized by the Organization for "Agatha! You've been gardening in my flannels again". VON 1'IL1S �l European Economic Co-operation as the authentic spokesman of European farmers. Citizens of the World In the past five years hun- dreds of young farmers have visited and farmed in new lands through IFAP's sponsorship of the exchange of agriculturists, young farmers who have taken back to their homelands not only valuable information On new farming techniques, but an in- ternational outlook as well. It takes patience and porsever- rance tor an organization such as IFAP to become influential in world affairs, but seeds have been planted which are bearing fruit, Today, 25,000,000 farmers are represented by IFAP, Through its agency the men of the soil have taken their rightful plase as citizens of the world. This column welcomes criti- cism, construetiee or destructive, as well as suggestions, wise ore otherwise. It will endeavour to answer all questions. Address mail to Bob Von Pilis, Whitby, Ont. Blind, Golfers Pray * t Lai-nbton Now that the long sun beats down on neighborhood golf courses, Canadian blind golfers are stepping up their practice in training for the International Blind Golfers Team Champion- ships, which are to be played at the Lambton Golf and Country Club, Toronto, July 21-23 inclu- sive. Teams composed solely of blind golfers will represent Canada and the United States in this first international team championship competition, which is being sponsored jointly by the Royal Canadian Golf Associa- tion and the House of Seagram. Each team will consist of seven players (six and an alternate), and in completing the 36 holes of tournament play the blind golfers will be competing simul- taneously in three separate con- tests. The lowest scores for each country will be totalled to de- cide the International Blind Golfers Team Championship. The same individual scores will be entered in competitions for separate International and Cana- dian Individual Blind Golfers Championships. The international competition has the blessing of the Canadian Blind Golfers Association and its U.S. counterpart, Both these organizations have a voice in electing tele members to rp present the two countries. Members of the Canadian team will be arouhced June 21 on the breeis of inter -club com- petitima now going on. Selec- tions for the American team will not be announced until a few days before the international tournament. Despite their formidable han- dicap, several of the Canadian and American players have recently gone around 18 holes with scores ranging from 105 to 112, and two or three have been known to break the hundred. Because the three trophies and all tournament expenses are being met by the House of Sea- gram, gross proceeds from pub- lic sale of tickets will be donated to the Canadian National Insti- tute for the Blind. //eating The Heat — Summer is here and the water looks nice onbugh for a clip. But these two cuties In Helsinki, Finland, seem st trifle hesitant about dunking themselves all the way. Well Stacked! A 40 -foot section of the funnel of the new Cunard liner Saxonia is lowered into position by one of the giant cranes at John Brown's yard, Clydebank, Scotland. This is the lower section of the big vessel's ultra -modern smoke stack. It will be surmounted by o domed top which will keep smoke away from the liner's upper decks. its size can best be judged by com- parison with the workmen below. Now being prepared for her maiden voyage to Montreal Sept. 2, the 22,000 -ton Saxonia is the first of three new Cunarders being built for the company's Canadian service. How Can I? Q. How can I give starch a brilliant luster? A. Soak for five or six hours, one ounce of white gum arable in one quart of water, then add two ounces of borax and heat to the boiling point. Now add one ounce of glycerin. When cool, strain and bottle for use. Stir one tablespoonful of this mixture into every three quarts of starch used. Q. How can I make colored icing without artificial coloring? A, By using orange juice or egg yolk for yellow, spinach juice for green, blackberry juice for lavender, or red beet juice for pink. Q. .now can I keep a clothes- line from stretching? A. Boil the new clothesline before using. It will make it last longer and prevent it from stretching. Q. How can I wake a high polish for furniture? A. Use equal parts of lemon oil and turpentine; saturate a cloth and go over the surface to be polished. Then dampen an- other cloth, wring almost dry and wipe off excess oil Polish wet a woolen cloth; ,---- Q. TQ. HOW can I serve ice cream quickly when dishing it from con- tainers? A. The ice cream can be plac- ed in the dishes quickly if the spoon is wet with cold water each time before thrusting into the container. Q. How can I easily clean bed springs? A. Place the springs in a sun and turn the hose on them. The sun will dry them within a very short time. Q. How can I prevent cal- louses on the hands when using a broom? A. This can be prevented by covering the upper part of the handle of the broom with any soft material, sewing it firmly, tacking the lower end of the material to the handle. Q. How can I keep olive oil from becoming rancid? A. Place two medium- sized lumps of sugar in one quart of alive oil, as soon as it is opened, and it will prevent the oil from becoming rancid. Q. How can I remove stains from knives? A. The majority of knife steins can be quickly removed by rubbing with a piece of raw po- tato. Q. How can I cretin dull and dingy -looking gilt picture frames? A. Cover with a thick paste of sifted whiting and alcohol and rub off with flannel before it hard- ens; or rub with a cut lemon and sponge with water containing one tablespoonful of baking soda to the pint. This is good for gilding done only with gold leaf or Dutch metal and does not refer to frames painted with powders. UP-TO-DATE ROMANCE Maud Muller, on a summer night, Turned down the only parlor light. The judge, beside her, whispered things Of wedding bells and diamond rings. He spoke his love in burning phrase, And acted foolish forty ways. When he had gone. Maud gave a laugh And then turned off the dictograph. Ef : eautyf' Lecture Coaled The Lades Dr. Glen Walker is a scientist who has done much valuable re- search work in the field of cos- mic rays—the very energetic ra- diation which falls on earth from outer space and which consists chiefly, if not entirely, of charg- ed particles. The origin is not known with certainty. Dr. Walker spends a lot of his time lecturing to schools, insti- tutes, community centres and the like on his findings. He usually finds a large audience waiting for him, and generally they lis- ten appreciatively to his talk about alpha and gamma rays, high-energy electrons, and im- aginary space travel. He recalls arriving at a little town in the mid -West to find the hall in which he was to lecture entirely filled with women. There were even girls and women still try- ing to push their way into the crowded buildings, while some were standing with their faces pressed to the wlndOws. Dr. Walker never realized so many women were interested in eosmie rays. And he began to have further doubts when be- t�are he wag bail ay through hi6 1eo ute the ball beetle] tto empty. It was not till afterwards that jie found out the reason for his bumper audience. The subject of his lecture had been advertised throughout the town as "Cos- metic Rays." Many women turn out to learn about cosmic rays, Of course, but they're a different type. Haw Herman Fooled The U. S. Customs As in every other walk of life, the great ideas in crime are usually simple ones. And some- times their very simplicity baffles the men who think they are searching for some fiendishly clever scheme. The American authorities were puzzled and alarmed by the scope of the diamond smuggling racket. Some person, or, as was more likely, persons, had found a way to beat every precaution that the Customs were taking. Systematic work soon narrow- ed the suspicion down to four men. Herman was one of them. Soon after, one of them died a natural death. Of the three left only Herman showed signs of lush prosperity. So, they de. cided, Herman was their man. At this time, it was Herman's habit to cross and recross the Atlantic about five times a year. He carried on a business as a jeweller and watchmaker in New York, and when questioned about his trips, was able to produce irrefutable evidence that he tra- velled on honest business. The Customs had tried the gentle way; now began Herman's rough passage. Each time he stepped on to the dockside in New York he was ushered into a specie 1 examination room. There every stitch of clothing, every ea s e and valise was probed, prodded, and, if need be, ripped open. As each attempt proved fruit- less, so the 'efforts grew more elaborate. Herman's cases were echo -tapped for false bottoms, X-rayed and electric -eyed. Her- man himself was grilled and grilled again. Still the Customs men found nothing. Still Herman protested his innocence. After one trip he came ashore, signalled to the waiting Customs men and told them he wanted to declare some diamonds, They almost tore them out of his hand. The stones • poured out of the little wash -leather bag and were promptly sent away for in- dependent valuation. The bill of sale that Herman had obtained in Holland was worked over for everything, including invisible ink.. Herman paid the duty, the tax, and was given his receipt. The Customs officials were more baffled " than ever, and after another conference they ap- proached Herman with a pro- position: They agreed.to give Herman a clean slate, guarantee no prose- cution for his past offences if he would -agree to, (a) stop smug- gling; and (b) tell them how he did it. After some thought Herman agreed. He was tired of being questioned and mauled about and, anyway, he'd made enough to satisfy his wants for the rest of his life. To a roomful Of Customs men Herman told this story: "I buy diamonds in Holland I also buy a bit and brace, some plastic wood, some quick varnish and brush. "When the ship sails from Hol- land I bore a number of holes in the panelling of my state- room. Into these I put the diamonds. Over them I pack hi the plastic wood. Over those small spots I smooth varnish— the right colour, of course. Then I throw the tools overboard. And that's that." e N A "Whaddya mean, that's that?" snarled a Customs man. "How do you bring thein ashore?" "I d o n' t," replied Herman cheerfully. "I leave them there, then the next time that boat comes in from Holland I book the same stateroom. I throw a bon voyage party. One of the guys picks up the rocks and walks ashore. You never check people who've come to see others off." "You mean to say that for something like a month those rocks are tucked away in a state- room wall?" "Yes," said Kerman. "And nobody ever swiped them? You put some trust in people's honesty!" "No," said Herman, "just in their lack of observation." Smoke Smoke is the result of im- perfect burning. Most of the substances from which we get much smoke, if they were pro- perly burned, would form noth- ing but gases, which we could not see, and which would very soon fly away. But men have not yet invented a furnace that will burn a fuel completely, without any smoke, though some factories have installed devices that almost do the trick. So we burn the coal or wood or Oil or other substances only partly, and small specks of It, unburned, are carried up the chimney or smokestack. • The solid sub- stance in smoke is simply hoes in small specks. Smoke makes black fog in many cities, and cuts off a great quantity of daylight, besides making everything dirty, des- troying plants and trees, and filling our lungs with dirt that we never get rid of. Polaroid Classes Anti How They Act We have learned ordinary light travels in waves, Or vibrations. When the waves hit a smooth surface, suet) as a mirror, a pool of water, a wall or even the leaves of trees, they behave like a handful of flat skipping -stones thrown across a pond. Those that happen to strike the surface edge -on will plunge M. Those that strike the surface with their flat sides do not plunge in, but skip off. Tho light -waves that skip off are the ones that make up most of the dazzling glare you see 00 a bright day. Since most glare surfaces are horizon- tal, these glare waves strike at your eyes with their vibrations running side to side rather than up and down, Polaroid sunglasses have lenses of a special plastic that can block these side-to-side vibrations. Think of two boy, one on either side of a picket fence, each hold- ing the end of a jumping rope passed between two pickets, The boys can make the rope go up and down in a wave-like motion; but they cannot give it a circular motion as for jumping rope. Pol- aroid material acts somewhat like a picket fence. In the sun- glasses, the Polaroid lenses are set with their "pickets" vertical. They permit light vibrating up and down to pass through, but keep out the glare vibrations that are moving crosswise. There are certain natural sub- stances that will polarize light. A mineral called Iceland spar is one of them; tourmaline is an- other. Men have tried for a long time to find or invent a polarizing material that would be available on a large scale, for light has manyuses in industry and in optics. Shortly after 1925 an American scientist, Edwin 11. Land, brought out a plastic pol- arizing sheet that he called Pol- aroid film. In the plastic were tiny polarizing crystals. Later polarizers invented by Land have no crystals. Instead, their mole- cules are lined up in such a way that they polarize light.. Sometimes even light that has. passed through a Polaroid lens is much too bright for comfort, Polaroid sunglasses with double lenses, or discs, reduce the light as much as you wish. One disc rotates, You may set it so that the two dicscs polorize the light in the same direction, or you may turn it so that they partly cancel each Other. You can even block Off all the light. (To go back to your picket fence, you could -set a second fence cross- wise, behind the upright fence. Now your rope could not move freely in any direction,) Perhaps you have ridden in a train that has Polaroid windows. They have double panes that can be adjusted, like the sun- glasses, to let is as much light as you wish. They do not need shades, for you can block out a little, or all, of the light by turn- ing one of the discs. Perhaps some day all our auto- mobiles will have their head- lights and windshields made of Polaroid glass This would block of glare and make driving far safer and more comfortable. BUSY TRAFFIC At a very busy street corner traffic was roaring through. A man waited for a long time to cross, but there was no let-up in the stream of traffic, After some time, he saw another man on the other side of the street He called to him; "How did you get over there?" . The other man cupped his . hands about his mouth and yelled back: "I was born over here." Treasure Trove Under The Sea There are finer treasures in the Mediterranean, waiting with in range of the (aqua) lung, She is the mother of civilization, the sea girt with the Oldest cultures, a museum in sun and spray, The grandest 01 undersea discoveries, l0 our taste, are the wrecks of pro -Christina. ships On the floor, Twice we have visited classic wrecks and recovered ri 0 h e s - beyond gold, the art and artifacts a ancient times. We have locat- ed three more suet] vessels which await salvage. No cargo ship of antiquity is preserved on land. The Viking ships that have been found buried in the earth and the Em- peror Trajan's pleasure barges which were recovered by drain - ing raining Lake Nemi in ' Italy, are splendid evidence of noncom- mercial vessels of aneient times, but little is known of the mer- chant ships that brought nations together. My first clue to the (-lassie ships appeared in the Bey of Sanary, where forty years ago a fisherman brought up a bronze figurehead. He died before 1 came to Sanary and'I have never been able to learn where he found it. Years later Henri Broussard, leader of the Undersea Moun- tain -Climbing Club' of Cannes, came up from an aqualung dive , with a Greek amphora. The graceful two handled earthen- ware jar was the cargo cask of antiquity, used for , .. oil, water and grain. The cargo ships of Phoenicia, Greece, Carthage and Rome carried thousands of am- phoras in racks in the hold. The bottom of the amphora is conical On shipboard' it probably fitted in holes in the cargo racks. Broussard reported that. -he saw a pile of amphoras in sixty feet of Water. He did not guess that it indicated a wreck, because the ship was completely buried. We dived from the Elie Mon- nier and found the amphoras tumbled and sharded on a bed of compacted organic matter in a dusty gray landscape of weeds. With a powerful suction hose we tunneled down to find the ship. A hundred amphoras came out of the shaft, most of them with corks still in place. A few had well-preserved, waxen seals bear- ing the initials of ancient Greek , , merchants. For several days we siphoned mud and amphoras. Fifteen feet down we struck wood, the deck planking of a freighter, one of two ancient cargo vessels that have been found. We were not equipped to carry out full-scale salvage and our time was limit- ed. We went away with ampho- ras, specimens of wood, and the knowledge of a unique hydro - archeological site which awaits relatively simple excavation. We believe the hull is preserved and could be raised in one piece. What things that wreck might tell of the shipbuilding and inter- national commerce of the distant past!—From "The Silent World," by Captain J. Y. Cousteau, with Frederick Dumas. MERRY MENAGERIE 'Pop, when lt's time for me .to start noticing girls, will you show me which ones are? "Who's Going to :Agee Me?"—Not this young rider, at ony rate, if Patch Ill has anything to say about It. Patch had just knocked down the bar on an obstacle course during the Chtishire Horse' Show in,Lo,uicn,'England, and irn4nedlotc^ly decided to sit out the rest of the evens,