The Rural Voice, 1979-02, Page 13mommommommomm
A matter of principle
by J. Carl Hemingway
Something for nothing
We have moved forward almost a month into the new year but
I am still finishing up 1978.
Just as the old year was going out I happened to watch the
"Watson Report" on CBC TV. The guest was the Minister of
Recreation in the Federal Government - a lady whose name I
missed. The members of cabinet seem to be shuffled and
changed so often that the Mininster of Agriculture is the only one
1 know for sure.
The topic under discussion was "Lotteries" basically Federal.
Mr. Watson was opposed to lotteries because the promote the
idea of getting "rich" for "nothing".
The Cabinet Minister justified the lotteries by pointing out
how important recreation, mainly physical, is to our natural
health and to the development of our athletes.
The money for this purpose comes very largely from the profits
of the lotteries and is therefore doing a lot of good.
Mr. Watson tried hard to get the Minister's personal opinion
on whether lotteries were good or bad for the people of Canada
but only got the reply that in her position it was her duty to get
money for this worthy cause and since this method had the
blessing of government she had to use it. In other words,
government policy becomes the conscience of a Cabinet
Minister.
She was really saying that the "end" justifies the "means."
I think there are very few who would agree with this argument.
A tew years ago there was a strong promotion for vast
increases in food production. We were bombarded with pictures
of starving people and especially children. Along with this
pressure to produce food was a campaign for donations to
charitable organizations to raise money to buy this food and
distribute it to the poor starving people.
They still starved and farmers were told to produce more and
cheaper food.
At this time there were several "old" farmers in our
neighbourhood who had been able, hard-working, successful
farmers, but alas they became old.
At that time their farms wouldn't bring enough for them to
retire to town so they simply kept the farm, lived in the house
and produced what they could - as years went by good farms
were producing at 25% capacity.
Strong young farmers could have used a lot of that land and
production of food would have been greatly increased.
If we follow the same reasoning as our "Cabinet Minister"the
strong young farmer should have jumped over the line fence,
beat up or even killed the old farmer and produced that extra
food on those good acres and thereby saved the lives of perhaps
fifty children.
Horrible isn't it - especially when I am the "old" farmer that
you, too, will be someday.
Fortunately we have now learned that in spite of the ever
increasing population there is now and for the foreseeable future
enough food to feed the world's population.
iic ieau prow iII is in dtstnouuon. Why isn't the food getting
to the poor?
Perhaps it is the same reason that made gasoline s� hard to get
recently. There was supposed to be a great scarcity at 50 cents
per gallon. Isn't it strange that now that gasoline has risen to
about a dollar a gallon there is plenty of gas.
If suddenly the poor could pay higher prices the starvation
would disappear.
Are we doing anything about it?
There was a conference recently of heads of state. Mr.
Trudeau was one of those attending - that came to a unanimous
agreement that inflation was their countries' greatest problem.
The conference was a huge success. It had made great
progress!
1 guess the result we are getting is the increase in interest
rates along with the promise of further increases in the not too'
distant future,.
The object is to reduce spending, reduce production - industry
will only produce what can be sold profitably - increased
unemployment - and increased prices.
Increased prices will also increase "credit" buying as ever
larger amounts of money will be needed.
There was a cute remark by an economist on T.V. He said "A
man buying on 'credit' is like a man riding a tiger. It's OK as
long has he can keep going but when he gets off the tiger will eat
him."
It seems to me and apparently economists agree that the high
interest rates being offered will encourage the purchase of bonds
rather than shares in industry. Government bonds will be
particularly attractive because they are supposedly the safest
place to put our money.
If this happens to any great degree it will indicate that people
are scared to invest in production. Money circulation will drop
and we will be back in "the thirties."
Money didn't disappear in the thirties. It just stopped moving.
Money in an old sock is worthless unless you can useit for a
pillow.
I was amazed to hear it stated on TV that there is enough
money in savings accounts to give every man, woman and child
$2,000. There are something like 23,900,000 people in Canada.
There are considerably more than 24 million savings accounts.
That is an awful lot of "dead" money.
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THE RURAL VOICE/FEBRUARY 1979 PG. 13