The Brussels Post, 1974-07-17, Page 241111MMPI1.11.11111 .., • •
Wednesday, ,July 17, 104
Serving 'Brussels and the surrounding community.
Published each Wednesday afternoon at Brussels, Ontario
by McLean Bros.Publishers, Limited..
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Maitland River dam
Sugar and Spice
By Bill Smiley
Food costs
Agridulture Minister Eugene Whelan won-1 be
too popular, but he had a point when he told a
University of Guelph audience last week that food
prices are not too high, that in fact they are nothigh
enough.
Before non-food producing readers get angry at
Whelan and at us for supporting him they should
stop .a minute and think. Whelan said food prices
should increase until it pays as much to keep good
land in agriculture as it now does to sell it to a
developer for a parking lot or shopping centre. And
he's right.
As tong as land will bring far more as a parking
lot than as a field of corn, we're going to lose our
good farM land. What do we value anyway, concrete
or carrots?
Any society that will pay speculators huge
amounts for real estate, without a murmur and will f
pay those who produce and sell luxury goods much
much more than it is willing to pay for basic
commodities like food has its piiorities twisted.
We'd better get used to having a spokesman for
agriculture like Whelan who tells us so without any
sugar coating.
Let the people
decide
Morris Township Deputy Reeve James Mair hit
the nail right on the head last week when discussing
the proposed restructuring of Huron County.
Amid a great deal of confused discussion Mr. Mair
suggested that any proposal for restructuring should
be put before the people of the county for a vote.
It's about the most sensible thing we've heard
ever since re-tructuring first came up under its
former name, regional government.
County council decided at the meeting- that a local
committee would be set up to study restructuring
rather than pay a big fee to a consulting firm. If the
members are objective enough, this should be a good
move. The council should draw up proposals for
restructuring and then put them before the people of
the county for their approval or disapproval.
Many, including provincial government officials,
would disapprove of such action of course. They
believe that the people aren't smart enough to decide
their own future. That is why the provincial
government gave the people in areas like Niagara no
chance to vote for or against regional government
Plans. They just dropped them in their laps and said;
`.There kiddies, we know best what's best for you,'
Perhalt at times people don't make the best
decision (after all they keep eieating Bill Davis and'
hit Tories) but you either have to haVe faith in people
or give up paying lip service to Democracy as a form
of government.
in Huron, if nowhere else, let's opt for Democracy
and give the people a Vote on their own futUre.
(The Blyth Standard)
There is a fair bit of panic in the financial
world these days. One of Germany's banks
failed. The stock market is more like a swamp
than a market. Inflation is scaring the wits out
of people, and even Politicians.
It was inevitable, that some of us bigger
figures in the financial and business game
would be affected personally. Sure enough,
I've been caught in a personal bind arid I don't
know whether to go for broke or go for the
hills.
I've been a pretty big shareholder of a stock
called Peel Elder. I have 25 shares. It's a long
story and I've told it before. But I got in on the
ground floor, as we say on Bay St. and Wall
St. These are a couple of well knowri streets in
the financial world. One of them runs down to
the bay, in case you want to drown yourself
when the market is slumping. The other has a
wall for pounding your head against in the
same eventuality.
Well, as I was saying, I got in early. Was
discharged from the air force with a couple Of
thousand bucks the paymaster had
thoughtfully put away for me while I was in
prison camp.
I had decided I wasn't going to slug and
sweat all my life just to make a living. I was
going to make it fast, and make it big.
I looked ,the field over pretty carefully,
searching for a career with a built-in escalator.
And the field looked right back at me with a
cold and steely eye, saying, in effect, "What
do you know how to do, besides crashlanding
an aircraft in a plowed field?"
There wasn't really much I could answer to
that. So, I thought, "The heck with the big
corporations, when they can't recognize
talent, drive and sheer ability, even though
these are staring them right in their cold,
corporate eye."
The final straw arrived when a personnel
manager at Bell Telephone told me warmly
that yes, he thought there might be a real
future for me with the company, and yes, he
thought he might find a place for me in three
or four months, but I'd have to start at the
bottom, like everyone else.
It turned out that the bottom was sweeping
floors at something like $48 a week. Even in
those'days The Bell paid good wages: That's
probably why they hoe to' ask for a rate
increase every couple of years, to compensate
fora their incredible generosity to their
etnployees.
Anyway, the bottom didn't have much
appeal. I'd had something in mind mire like
Vide-President in charge of Public Relations.
So I shook him warmly by ,the hand, with
that sincerity
m
that only V-P in charge of PR
can utter, thanked him and said, "Mustn't
take any more of your tithe. I have to dash td
the Royal York for lunch with Jack McClelland
of McClelland and Stewart,, then catch the
afternoon train for Montreal,
-where President Crump of the CPR has been
trying to get hold of me for a week. By the
way, if you get sick of The Bell, look me up in
a year or so, and I might have something for
you. Just contact Billy ,.Smiley Associates,
Incorporated, not to mention Limited."
At least I left him with his mouth open, but I
was seething, inside. Some people seethe on
the outside, but I always do it inside.
Anyway, I strode out of there,
muttering,"All right. O.K. If that's the way
they want it. I'll plunge into the stock market
and buy them all up and have mergers and
conglomerates and cavaiar and all sorts of
stuff." Even then, young and inexperienced, I
knew the jargon of big business.
So I plunged. It was like a butterfly
plunging at a bull elephant.
Oh, I didn't just roar around buying up
companies. I .didn 't buy just any old stocks. 1
wish I had. I bought some' so new the ink
wasn't dry on the certificates.
But I proceeded with caution. I wasn't going
to be -tak_en irk by some smooth-talking
operator working out of a telephone booth,
On the advice of my landlady's sister, who
had her hair done every Wednesday with a
friend who baby-sat..for a prominent
stock-broker's former wife, I decided to
plunge into Norther Ontario gold.
My first choice was a lucky one. I bought
into a company with a property so rich that
even the moose‘ who used it for pasture had
gold fillings in their teeth.
And I didn't fool around with penny stocks.
That's for the little guy with two hundred
bucks to invest. No, I went for the solid,blue
chip stuff.
I snapped up one thousand shares of this
stock for 22 cents a share. Within two days it
.had short up to 23 cents. I was on my
way, and I've never-looked back since. It hurts
too much. In three weeks the stock wasn't
listed on the financial page. I still think it was
because some linotype operator was sore
because some of us were making fortunes,
and he left the name of the mine out of the list
through sheer spite. '
But all this is getting us nowhere. I started
Out to tell you how a couple of big
congionierates or condominiums or whatever
the tail them are ganging to get hold of my
25 shareS of Peel Elder. They've offered to
buy them for $13 a share arid I could have sold
them a month ago kir $11.75 a Share
There's something fishy going on, and if I
can get to the bottom of it, I'll expose the
whole thing in next week's column: Just hang
in there and wait. I ddn't want to see other
simple shareholders get hurt:
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