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Times-Advocate, 1978-09-14, Page 4Times-Advocate, September 14/ 1978 Cost - free luxury Critics of Prime Minister Trudeau’s proposed constitution claim that the document would displace the Queen as Canada’s constitutional monarch and replace her with a government-appointed governor­ general. The objectors contend that the man who received such a political ap­ pointment would, in effect, be nothing more than the president of a republic as is the case in France or the United States. Canadians who have long since ceased to be royalists say, "So what?” Such a disinterested response betrays a lack of insight into the subtle differences between a republic and a monarchy. An elected president cer­ tainly has faithful supporters who agree with his leadership — but he may have as many as 49 per cent of the na­ tion in disagreement with what he stands for, A governor-general appointed by the politicial party in power would, naturally, be regarded by supporters of the opposition parties as a politically biased head of state. That is not the case with a constitutional monarch such as Queen Elizabeth. The monarch has demonstrated for the last two or three hundred years that the reigning king or queen stands aside from political issension and can thus speak for all people in the realm. Canadians are increasingly lukewarm to the British monarch as our country’s titular king or queen, but if we want to be practical, let us say that at least we get a cost-free bargain. Queen Elizabeth represents the dignity of responsible leadership and the British people pay the shot. Not one cent of Canadian money is required to maintain the monarchy — although most Americans and quite a few Canadians refuse to believe it. Tourism in trouble Think small by Jim Smith The Sonny Liston of Economics A government task force has recently reported facts that many already know — Canada’s tourism in­ dustry is in serious trouble. In the first half of 1978, Canada suf­ fered a national tourism trade deficit of $1.4 billion, money that might have helped solve at least some of the nation’s growing unemployment. The reasons for our declining tourism are obvious. Hotels and motels in Canada often charge higher rates than those in other countries. Even the declining Canadian dollar hasn’t brought the influx of American tourists into the country that many government experts predicted it would. In Europe, perhaps the part of the world most experienced in catering to tourists, bed and breakfast ac­ commodationsandpensions in private homes provide accommodation for peo­ ple travelling on a limited budget. They don’t offer fancy dining rooms, elaborate bars or entertainment, but they do offer clean, comfortable ac­ commodation, breakfast .and usually a bath with hot running water. In Canada. Vancouver has already started an alternate accommodation program of housing tourists in private homes and this year the city reported a record year for American tourists, one of the few parts of Canada to ex­ perience a tourist boom. Another problem is that we Canadians still tend to view the tourist as someone we can rip off. After all, a tourist must have money if he’s travell­ ing in another country, so some of us overcharge him all along the line, often refuse to allow him the proper ex­ change on his currency and sometimes we forget there’s such a custom as friendliness. Our own Canadian tourists are also often choosing to spend their hard earn­ ed dollars outside the country. Despite our falling dollar, Canadians still find their money stretches further in the United States or overseas. It’s still cheaper to fly to Europe than it is within our own country. Many of the special charter flight prices available in Canada are honored only by Air Canada. This means the tourist is stranded with a worthless ticket when the national airline shuts down, as is happening with starting frequency lately. Canadians can find alternate forms of transportation, but the time involved in travelling by train or bus often takes a sizeable chunk out of their vacation. We need cheaper air flights within Canada, on more airlines, and a revam- pingof tourist accommodations offered across the country. Let’s start making an effort to be more hospitable hosts. We’ll feel friendlier, our economy will get a much needed boost and if we do a good job, maybe the visitors will come back next year. After all, Canada has some of the most beautiful scenery in the world to offer. “Actually, I don't work for Air Canada — my mother-in-law was supposed to fly down to visit us.” Sugar andI Dispensed by Smiley Two important words 11111*011 - theatre country With the summer season drawing to a close, it is time to reflect again on the theatre productions available to Huron County residents through July and August. Huron County must surely be one of the few Ontario counties that can boast two fine theatres, each one thoroughly entertaining though each one distinctively different. Personal preferences count for so much in theatre, making it difficult to assess the most successful production at each theatre. But for the purposes of this editorial, only two shows will be discussed. They are ‘Oklahoma’ which was staged at Grand Bend Country Playhouse and ‘The School Show’ which delighted so many folks at Blyth. The unique flavor of each theatre is unmistakable. The Grand Bend area theatre, though housed in a barn, is steeped in urban sophistication; the Blyth theatre, upstairs in a pleasant, air conditioned auditorium, is drenched in grass-roots simplicity, Both are charming. “Oklahoma." a well-known Broadway and Hollywood box office bonanza, was colorful and tuneful, backed up with a 20-piece pit orchestra that executed the Rogers and Hammerstein score with some skill at Grand Bend. Packed houses enjoyed the production, and audiences were properly appreciative, chuckling and chortling quietly atthe humor and smil­ ing and applauding in the right places for the music. “The School Show,” an original play written and played by Ted Johns, was an absolutely delightful version of the teachers’ strike in Huron this last school year. The music was recorded but that didn’t matter to the capacity crowds. At at least one performance, audiences gaffawed shamelessly at the Johns’ humor and even stepped in tune to the hoedown harmony as it filled in between acts. Yet for those people who attended both shows, it wouldn’t be easy to pick the one that was most enjoyable. Both seemed exactly right for the time and the place, And that’s what is so great about Huron County’s two theatres. They are at different ends of the county...and at opposite ends of the entertainment scale. But together they offer good entertainment ata reasonable price for Huron County residents and their guests. There is something for everybody and it is bouquets this week to both theatre groups and their faithful executives. Next summer can’t come too soon. Goderich Signal-Star There are only two really important words when you take your trip to Europe. One is "toilet” and the other is "money”. Each is a constant source of- anxietv, fascination and frustration. In general, the ladies worried about the toilets, and the men about the money. As our vivacious guide, Annette, in­ formed us, you don’t ask on the conti­ nent where the bathroom is, or you’re apt to get a response something like, "Watsa matta you lady? You wanna taka bath in a restaurant?” No, you bluntly blurt "Toilet?” It’s the same in every language, so you can’t go astray. There was only one thing wrong with our bus; It had comfortable seats, air- conditioning, a superb driver. But no "bathroom” at the rear. So you sailed off at 7 a.m., full of morning coffee, and shaky in the knowledge that you might be on that bus for two or three hours before a halt and the magic word TOILETS leaped into view. It wasn’t bad for the men, but there was always a lineup for the ladies’, the door often guarded by a fierce old harridan who demanded 100 lira or a franc piece before they were even ad- mitted to the inner sanctum. From what I heard and saw, the facilities ranged from spanking clean with hot water and lots of towels, down through pretty sleazy, with tissue the texture of wall-paper, to the very pits, which were just that, holes in the ground, from which the ladies emerged looking a bit stunned, rolling back down the legs of their pant suits. In a little more than 3,000 miles, only two emergency stops were made. One was for Larry, 8, who had and had the distinction of having a tinkle right beside the auto-route in France. The second was when Graham, a young Australian, (pronounced Grime in that language) was hit by a sudden attack of bad tum­ my and spent half an hour emitting at both ends in a filthy roadside toilet. Nobody minded either stop. Enough about toilets, surely. Now, about money. First of all, take more than you need. You’ll need it. By the time I got back to London, on a weekend, banks closed, I was so broke I had to borrow five pounds from the hall porter at our hotel. Before you begin your trip, obtain from your travel agent or airline a lit­ tle chart, or table, showing the ap­ proximate value of your own dollar in European currencies. It won’.t help much, but it will be something to cling to in the maelstrom of five or six different currencies changing value from day to day. ' ' For example, I changed some dollars for lira three times in one day, in Italy. First time, I got 850 lira for a dollar, second time 830, third time 800. Get rid of your loose change before you cross a border, even if you have to buy some candy and pass it around the bus. Each country will change paper money but is not interested in coins. You would wind up with a suitcase full of utterly useless francs, lira, marks, schilling, ets. I have enough to start a coin collection. Millions of tourists are honey to flies for the international pickpockets who infest the large cities. Our guide, la belle Annette, warned us so thoroughly, especially as we headed toward Rome, that we were a sight to behold after two days there. The women were all humpbacked from clutching their purses to their bosoms with both hands. The men looked like a group of spastics, trying to keep their hands firmly in all their four to eight pockets at the same time. Just the other day, our Rome guide informed us, a gentleman had had his wallet, containing $450 Australian, lifted right in St. Peter’s, the largest church in the world. We had a nice few moments of vicarious excitement when Glynis, from Australia, discovered her watch, worth $450, and a gift from her husband, was missing from her wrist. She said she’d felt a very soft, slight movement, look­ ed down, and the watch was gone. She was distraught. So were we all. Twenty minutes later, she found it in her bag, the turkey. It had slipped off her wrist and fallen into her purse. Some of the ladies were so nervous they took the unprecedented step of pinning their credit cards inside their bras. I played it safe. I never gave my wife more than a coin for the john, and I kept my cash in one pocket, my travelers’ cheques in another, and mv credit card in a third, so that I wouldn’t be made bankrupt by one swell foop. It was a bad year to visit Europe with inflation rampant there (cuppa coffee or Coke well over $1.00), the Canadian dollar diddling around 88 cents, and the American dollar sliding. Hotels run around $48 to $60 a night, and that’s not the Savoy or the Ritz. But wothehell, Archie, it’s only the price of a new car, and a small one, at that. Take your trip and drive the’old heap for another couple of years. You can’t sit around in an old car 20 years from now, and exchange things like: "Remember the pinchy-pinchy party in Rome, where the waiter, straight­ faced, pinched each lady’s bum as he served her soup or pasta?” 1945. It hadn’t been a par­ ticularly good year for Japan. The proud nation which had once commanded the Pacific rim now huddled miserably, reduced to a shattered pile of smoking rubble by the ad­ verse fortunes of war. 1960. The same decimated island - a land virtually bare of resources - had become the world’s leading industrial power. Traditional American firms were transferring their production to Japan, leaving nothing more than distribu­ tion shells at home. The Ja­ panese had latched on to a strange new electronic device known as a transistor and used it in magnificently ima­ ginative ways. 1978. Only 33 years after the end of the war and no one laughs at the slogan “Made in Japan” anymore. A country with every rea­ son except pride to fail still sits at the top of the econo­ mic ladder, still defending its economy with imagination and courage. The transistor has long since been replaced by integrated circuits, a tech­ nology which promises to make Japan - which no longer enjoys a low-priced la­ bour force — even stronger tomorrow than it has been in recent years. 1945. Canada, a nation blessed with spectacular re­ source wealth, her factories untouched by war, her work force one of the world’s most highly educated, stands on the brink of greatness. 1960. Canada has failed to realize her apparent indus­ trialized destiny. Indeed,she has fallen farther behind the rest of the industrialized world. 1978. Canada is now laugh­ ingly considered an underde­ veloped country masquerad­ ing as a nation of substance. We’ve become the Sonny Liston of economics — a so- called champion felled by a single punch early in the first round. What did we do wrong? Mostly, it’s a case of what Japan did right. Economic development is at the base of every Japanese govern­ mental decision. The Japan­ ese are past masters at nego­ tiating the most favourable conditions fortheir econo­ mic development; if a major purchase must be made abroad, the Japanese will en­ sure that some new techno­ logy is imported into the bargain. In Canada, if it is neces­ sary to contract with a for­ eign manufacturer of, for ex­ ample, fighter planes, little thought is given to forcing partial production in Canada or sub-licensing of some im­ portant technical knowledge to Canadian firms, educating our engineers. It isn’t the fault of the Ministry of De­ fence; Canada should have an active industrial planning department within govern­ ment. England recently entered into a sub-licensing agree­ ment with a major American producer of microprocessors (the tiny silicon chips that have replaced transistorsand revolutionized the data pro­ cessing industry). England won’t turn a profit on that deal directly — but her en­ gineers will learn about this vital new technology first hand. In the years to come, England and her trading part­ ners in Europe won’t be ex­ cluded from the social and economic revolution created by microcircuits - a field which remains, relatively for­ eign to Canadians. The most common ques­ tion around Ottawa is “Who’s in charge here?” It’s time we had an answer. “Think small” is an editorial message from the Canadian Federation o’ Independent Busi ess -------------------------------------------------- rtown memory lane. Perspectives By SYD FLETCHER Perspectives their sixtieth wedding an­ niversary on Monday. 20 Years Ago About 75 Boy Scouts from the Huron district enjoyed a three-day camporee in the new public park in the Pinery over the week end. Ralph Sweitzer was cam­ poree chief. Hilt Laing, Exeter, whose former building was gutted by fire last year, opens his new cement block repair shop on Victoria St. beside the arena this week. Fire destroyed Exeter Turnip Sales’ waxing plant for the second time in less than four years Wednesday morning. Although construction of its new 202 by 24 building has not been completed, North Land Turkey Hatchery have 25,000 eggs in incubators in an effort to meed demands for poultry. Neil Campbell is manager. 15 Years Ago Highways Minister C.S. MacNaughton posted what is believed to be the biggest majority in Huron election history Wednesday when he captured his third victory' at the polls by a margin of 4,671. Heavy rain, just about parade time poured on the Exeter fair and officials estimated the crowd down about 1,000. A number of outdoor events had to be cancelled, but the majority of activities carried on. Whitney Coates qnd Son R.R. 1 Centralia won both grand, senior and junior female champions, plus seven other first prizes at the regional cattle shows in Seaforth recently. A new 51-foot unit in­ corporating a blower system to load and unload bulk salt and two pressurized bins has been added to the Guenther- Tuckey Transports Limited fleet. 55 Years Ago On Wednesday evening about midnight, fire destroyed two fine bank barns near Kirkton. The barn of Mrs. David Rogers was the.first to take fire and it was completely destroyed. Shortly after, the barn on the farm of Mr. Nelson Fletcher, just across the road from the Rogers barn took lire, supposedly from the cinders and it was soon reduced to a heap of ruins. In both barn the season’s crop had been stored and both lost a quantity of implements and a number of pigs and hens. The cause of the fire is unknown. Mr. William Lawson left this week for Toronto Lo attend dental college. Mr. Harry Seldon left last Thursday for Kingston where he will study medicine at Queen’s University. Miss Pearl Holtzman left for Chicago where she has accepted a position as assistant principal of the Evangelical Deaconess Hospital. 30 Years Ago The Legion have pur­ chased the lot on William Street behind the theatre for the site of the new Legion building. Mr. and Mrs. W.C. Pearce are leaving Friday for Vancouver where Mr. Pearce will be a com­ missioner to the General Council of the United Church. They will visit with Dr. j.E. and Mrs. Whiting before returning, Miss Marguerite Pickard left this week to attend Normal School in London. Mr. E. Kohler who has been installing the bowling alleys for William Sweitzer for the past four weeks has returned to Toronto. Mr, and Mrs. John F. Smith, Crediton celebrated would put a chubby arm around the other boy and say "Gee you’re a real buddy of mine” and the other lad was his slave for ever. His head was a mass of dark brown curies. One day he came to school, close­ cropped. His mother had cut them off because he was constantly twisting them till in one place he had produced a bald spot. Because he used some baby-talk yet he had to visit the speech therapist once a week. A bubbly vivacious type of person she used all kinds of puppets and pictures to interest her students. This time she had a frog and was down on the floor on all fours making it hop. "Now you come down and make Freddy the Frog hop,” she said to Chris. “You play with Freddy,” he said agreeably, "and I’ll play with this twuck” and proceeded to do just that. With his home-room teacher, Chris had his own problems, mostly with reading. Though .he could easily learn concrete words such as ‘jump’, ‘walk’ and 'mother' he had difficulty grasping ones such as ‘was’, ‘is’, and ‘were’ that had nothing to really grab on to as far as a mental picture, The one that really threw him was ‘new’. For two days they had gone over it in every way that his teacher could devise-outlining it with sand on glued paper and having Chris lightly run his hand over it, having him write it on the board and in his book, finding it among other words till at last he was ready to try it in the reader - "Mother has a new coat.” Still he couldn’t get it. Carefully they went over all the ways again then tried the sentence. He got it. Tried the next sentence, "Father has,” he began, "Father has a,” then said in despair, "Oh dod, here it comes again” breaking his teacher up completely. I guess little angels come in all shapes and sizes. Christian School meetsEditor’s note: This week we add a new column to .the Times- Advocate, "Perspectives” by. Syd Fletcher. Mr. Flet­ cher is a free lance writer living in Forest. Employed with the Lambton County Board o: Education, he is a public school principal. He has published a book of poetry entitled, "Bring Me Loose” and is presently working on an historical novel about 19th century Canada. John Haverkamp, These men will serve for a two year term and we wish them well .in the year ahead. The proposed budget for the year 1978-79 of $186,460.00 was presented by the treasurer Evert Ridder and was accepted by the members. A progress report on the gymnasium was presented by John Maaskant, but. much work has to be done yet before any definite building plans can be realized. The three new staff members were introduced by Mr. Roorda. They are Miss Dorothy Pr inzen, grade 1; Miss Trix Kreeft, grade 2; and Mr. John Huis, grade 3. We hope they will have an enjoyable and blessed year in our school. Principal Ralph Schuurman reported 207 pupils enrolled in the school this year as compared to 214 last year. By HELEN DYKSTRA Mr. Jack Roorda presided at the annual meeting of the Clinton and District Christian School Society which was held on Tuesday, September 5, 1978. A full house of interested parents were welcomed by the chairman and it is certainly good to see so much interest in the school’s activities. A special welcome was ex­ tended to the delegates from Exeter Christian School Society. Secretary for the board, Kees Dykstra, read the minutes of the meeting of June 5, 1978 and gave a resume of the activities of the board and the various committees which help to operate the school. Voting for new board members resulted in the re-election of Jack Roorda, Kees Dykstra, George Turton, John de Vries and Kase Vander Heuvel and in the election of Times Established 1873 Advocate Established 188) vocate r* UmtAM VtTi limes Wrvtaj few* Mwvn, ***** MM ......................................... 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 Jongkihd Phone 235-1331 (*CNA SUBSC Amalgamated 1924 Published Each Thursday Morning at Exeter, Ontario Second Class Mail Registration Number 0386 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Canada $11.00 Per Year; USA $22.00 To look at Chris you would think he was a little angel. He was in the grade 1 class, all of six years old and already a con man. Shorter than most of the boys, his cherubic face would beam as he got one of them to do a chore for him, Too lazy to get off the stool on which he was standing he would beckon to another little fellow to pick up a dropped chalkboard brush. When he got down he Z---- ---------------------------------------------------. Got the blues? | Want to get away from .^-7 | paRTicipacnon^ & Walk a block.Today. > it all? Take a walk! I_.