Page 4, The Herald, Wednesday, November 22, 1978 TERRACE/KITIMAT daily herald General Office - 635-6357 Published by Circulation - 635-6357 Sterling Publishers PUBLISHER - Laurie Mallett GEN. MANAGER - Knox Coupland EDITOR. Greg Middleton CIRCULATION - TERRACE - Andy Wightman 635-6357 KITIMAT - Pal Zelinskl 632-2747 KITIMAT OFFICE - 632-2747 Published every weekday at 3212 Kalum Street, Terrace, B.C. A member of Varifled Circulation. Authorized as second class mail. Registration number 1201. Postage paid In cash, return postage guaranteed. NOTE OF COPYRIGHT The Herald retains full, completa and sole copyright in any advertisement produced and-or any editorial ar photographic content published in the Herald. Reproduction is not permitted without the written | permission of the Publisher. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR reunion is scheduled for Friday, Salurday, and dear Editor: It would be appreciated if you would publish the con- tents of the enclosed ietter in your newspaper as a public service. Until recently (15 years ago) Welland High was the only public high school in Welland, Many of our former students are residents of every province and territory in Canada and reside in many states of the United States of America as well. For any assistance you may be able to give us, in publicizing our Centenary Celebrations, we will be truly grateful. Yours sincerely, F.P. Downie, Principal. Anniversary Reunion A reunion of all former Welland Higham? Vocational School students will be held at the school to celebrate our 100th anniversary. The Sunday, May 26, 26, 27, 1979. A continuous program of events will take place commencing at 6 p.m, on Friday and will include: registration, tours of the school, a heritage display and class meetings. Coffee and tea will be served in the cafeteria. A History of Welland High and Vocational School will go on sale during the reunion. We extend a sincere in- vitation to all former Welland High students and thelr partners to join us in celebrating the 100th An- niversary of our school. If you require any ad- ditional information with regard to the reunion please write the One-Hundred Anniversary Committee, Welland High and Vocational School, Main Street West, Welland, Ontario, L8C 5A5, or telephone 416-732-6141. EDITOR'S JOURNAL By Greg Middleton A reader’ dropped = this poem off to me and i pass It Put your hand in it up to your wrist; on to you as a little pull it out; and the hole that’s something to think about. remaining, 1s a measure of how you'll be THE BUCKET missed. Sometime when you're feeling important, You may splash all you Sometime when your ego’s in please when you enter, bloom, You can stir up the water Sometime when you take itfor galore, granted, . But stop, and you'll find in a You're the best qualified in the minute, room. That it looks quite the same as before. ‘ Sometime when you feel that your going Would leave an unfillable hole. Just follow this simple in- The moral of this quaint example, Is do just the best that you struction, can, And see how it humbles your Be proud of yourself, but soul. remember, There's no indispensible Take a bucket, and fill it with man. water, TORONTO (CP) - Canada’s 3,000 new car dealers are braced for a war with Ottawa over the federal sales tax cut, a war that could cost them at least $40 million. The dealers do not object to the sales tax cut an- nounced last week in the federal budget but to the way it is being applied. In his budget, Finance Minister Jean Chretien reduced to nine from 12 per cent the tax paid by manufacturers on finished products. But the reduction applies only to goods shipped from the factory after mid- night last Thursday, It does not affect unsold molor vehicles in dealer lots, or those in transit to the dealers, on which the 12 per cent lax has already been paid. “An average dealer has 100 vehicles in stock—some three times that amount— and the tax reduction can cost each dealer$i 000 to $60,000,"" said Ken Graydon of the Federation of Automobile Dealers Association of Canada which represents Lhe 3,000 dealers. An estimated 300,000 motor veticles currently in dealer inventories are af- fected. The dealers want Ottawa to rebate the taxes they have paid on the motor vehicies in inventory so they can compete with new vehicles thal qualify for the lax reduction. “The basic question we're OTTAWA BY RICHARD JACKSON OFFBEAT QTTAWA ~ Let’s not be such easy marks. For years we've been “J thought f noticed the line move up a little.” bullied and blackmailed by the postal workers. : And all through those 4 years of extortion — pay off el or forget the mail — the postal workers had a soft H sort of support from Prime Minister Trudeau. Soft in the sense that in equating the pay and privileges demands of the postal wortkers with the public's right to its tax-paid mail service, the prime minister at least gave the unian reason to believe he didn’t object to it hanging tough. For you'll remember in that long strike a few years ago which went on and on for weeks, the prime minister said he would bring it to an end only when he thought “the public has suffered enough.” So the postal workers hung on, finally settling for still another inflationary pay increase. But this time, instinctively sensing that the taxpayers weren't going to lake it any more fram the overpaid and “It is to be hoped there are brighter prospects in view for Canada’s ‘third world’, thanks la the work of the Canadian Con- sultative Council an Multiculturalism.” So says Will Hankinson who recently returned trom a three day national con- ference of the Council in Ottawa, which he at- tended as a Council member representing northwestern B.C. “Fhe six and a half million strangers in our midst face problems of communication and acceptance in a country to which they were in- vited and where they are sometimes treated harshly and made to tee} they are second-class citizens", he claims. At the recent con- ference, the Council faced a long agenda of questions handed the lelegates: “What do we CANADA'S THIRD vually mean by breaking down barriers and how can this be achieved?” Are cultural rights part of the basie human rights and. do existing Human Rights Codes in Canada adequately meet the challenges of our society today? Is prejudice present in our in- stitutions. sovieties, and organizations, and how can young peaple work towards its elimination?" And 48 more questions begging for answers. What is the council and how are its members ehosen? “The council is an udvisory body to the Minister of State for Multiculturalism, the Honourable Norman Ualik, and the members are named by him. He poses the questions and expects the council to tome up with answers. It Groups considers problems is then his responsibility to try to make any practicable suggestions effective, In the process, he holds many con- sultations with public officials who are in a position to help deal with the problems, and does a good deal of speaking to community bodies where he hopes to exert in- fluence in a positive direction. Incidentally, the minister is a lively speaker who is in demand all over Canada by organizalions wanting to know what he is up to — what multiculturalism is all about. “As to the basis of choice, I suspect ex- perience in trying to cope with the pertinent problems comes first. Also, ethnic and geographical distribition is as wide as possible. But lest anyone get the _ welcomed into Canadian idea members attend to grind local axes, that sort of thing is against the rules. And the rule was well observed at this conference,” When is the next con- ference? “The next national conference will probably be called late in 1980 or early in 1981. But we are not going to be allowed to forget the matter until then. AS specific problems arise, regional conferences will be called. “In the meantime, many of the problems will disappear if all Canadians keep in mind that the newcomers are here because Canada accepted them, that many of them have been citlzenship, and that we should treat them as the first-class Canadian citizens they are.” LONDON (CP) -~ Britons —Author Unknown. are reading, watching and Auto dealers declare war raising is that we don’t feel the local, independent businessmen should haye to subsidize a tax cut,” a federation spokesman said. The federation has ap- pealed to Chretien to grant the rebates but have had no response, They claim that without rebates dealers will have to reduce prices on vehicles in inventory at a loss of $60 million or more. Dealers are hoping Ottawa will follow the precedent of 1998 and 1974 when similar tax adjustments were an- nounced and followed up wilh rebates. General Motors of Canada Ltd. estimates its dealers could lose $23.4 million if they are forced to absarb the full tax eut on pre-budget inventory. Ford Motor Co. of Canada }.'./ .. the potential loss at $13.4 snillion. Ford, General Motors and Chrysler Canada Ltd, have announced plans to pass the reduction in sales tax to their dealers, which will mean a saving of aboul $175 on each vehicle. Maurice Carter, a GM dealer in Hamilton who said he stands to love $60,00 on his inventory, was upset with what he said was an in- sinuation by Chretien that dealers would not pass the lax saving to buyers. In Frederieton, John Clurk, a Cheyralet dealer, sad he hus 440 vehicles in inventory and estimates he can lose $901H0) by absorbing the lax listening to the shocking details of what one newspaper here has called “the case of the century." Details of charges that murder was plotted in the House of Commons and testimony that a top-ranked member of Parliament engaged in a homosexual affair are pouring from a tiny Somerset courtroom. For a while, however, it appeared that the British themselves would be the only people denied—at least at this stage— the lurid details of the charges against Jeremy Thorpe, former Liberal party leader and still MP, and the men charged with him. ' Before the court, in ad- dition to Thorpe, 49, are David Holmes, 48, London merchant banker; John Le Mesurier, 46, businessman of JUST SHOCKING’ Called case of century Bridgend, Glamorgan, and George Deakin 35, slot- machine operator of Port Talbot, West Glamorgan. They are accused of con- spiring together and with others to murder former male model Norman Scott. ‘Thorpe alone is accused of inciting Holmes to murder Scull, the man who claims he had a homosexual relationship with Thorpe. The Crown, in a summary of its case, says Thorpe believed the affair—-which Thorpe has steadfastly denied took place— was “like a black cloud" hanging over him and quoted Thorpe as saying, “We'll have to get rid of him. ... Tt is no worse than shooling a sick dog.’’: Chief witness for the prosecution is Peter Bessell, ‘a former Liberal MP now living in California who flew here under court immunity ta testify, Hessell has testified that Thorpe confessed he was a homosexual and spoke of the alleged relationship with. Scott when Bessell and Thorpe met in the members’ dining room of the Com- mons. Bessell said murder was first discussed—also in the House— just before Christmas 10 years ago and that Thorpe -called it “the ultimate solution.” Under British law, reporting of such evidence is banned in a case whith might go before a higher court. Since the reasoning behind the criminal justice act of 1967 is that publicity at this stage would make future jury selection difficult, the ban applies only to British publications, Therefore, foreign news- papers, radio and television could report, so long as these reports did not find their way back into Britain. The only way around this for the British news outlets would be for one of the ac- cused to ask that reporting restrictions be lifted—and surprisingly—that’s what happened. Deakin made the request and the magistrates had no choice. Deakin'’s lawyer said his client wished ‘‘the fullest scrutiny.” There is no leeway for dis- eretion by the bench. There is not, under the act, even any scope for limiting reporting to parts of a case concerning only the’ par- ticular defendant requesting publicity, So, the details of the Thorpe case are pouring oul. Even the relatively smail London tabloids are devoling pages to the Crown's sum- mary and to Besseli’s testimony. bow Monkey business Ser ea underwarked public service — especially the postal workers — Trudeau got tough. He legislated them back to work and made it stick. . But it must have sobered him when for a few days the union defied both Parliament and the courts. And it has to shake him up a little that in going back to their jobs, the postal workers, full of fury and sour with resentment, threatened slowdowns, waork-to-rule, possible rotating strikes and the extremity of sabotage. Applauded by a decidedly disenchanged public for standing up. — as never before — to the postal workers, the, prime minister missed the best chance since his use of the Armed Forces te crush the Quebec Liberation Front in the “October Crisis’ of 1970, to emerge the hero. For through 10 years of mail disruption, the postal workers have just about won their goal of pay parity with police and firemen. And with money like that available, and no great skilis or even effort required, those sta} jobs could have been filled a yittly by qualified unemployed, if the govern- ment had nerve enou clean house at the Post Office... ; It had broad public support as never before, but it lacked the will. ; So the public will be conned again. - Since out of it, a8 slickly as the magician pulls the rabbit from the hat, the postal warkers will extract a clearly inflationary 10 to 11 percent pay increase. And you know why? Because out of their short- lived strike, the outside mail carriers — the “posties" who do their door-to-door rounds — amid wide public praise for their ‘moderation’, extracted precisely that: 10 to 11 percent. Who said so? The federal government's very own substitute for the now phased-out Anti- Inflation Board, the new Centre for the Study of In- flation and Productivity. iL was a settlement — quietly negotiated by Acting Labor Minister Andre Quellet —- far above what the Canadian economy can afford if wage levels are to be kept in line with economic reality. That 10 to 11 percent in- crease will be paid over the next 18 months. And it is outrageous at an inflationary time when in- creases between six and seven percent are the most that can be justified and the most that workers in business and industry can accept, t The cost of living clause that takes the increase to 10 or 11 percent in the “posties;"’ contract was sublly misrepresented as a form of “protection” should prices stay above six per- cent. Nobody has totell you —- or the government either that it is supposed to be holding public service wage in- creases in check — about prices and where they are going. And get this: what the relatively tame ‘‘posties’’ got —- 10 to £1 percent — the government will be helpless to deny the militant, sabotage-threatening inside postal workers. THINK BY JIM SMITH SMALL Alchemists, Sorcerers and Economists Nothing attracts society so powerfully as the unknown. Those of us who purport to possess answers (o the large questions of life are worship- ‘ ped by a grateful society. Throughout history, society has been led by sorcerers, wiz- ards, priests of strange reli- gions and other pseudo-scien- tists, all identifiable by their secret languages and ritualis- tic practices, History would reveal that none of these in- dividuals knew the universal truths; rather, what counted with society was their claint ta know the truth, Today, society is ruled by economists — powerful indi- viduals who spread their gos- pel couched in unknown words fram sanctuaries in universities and government. The answer to our modem woes, they contend, is found in turning our industries over to a very few gigantic com- panies, We’ cannot compete with factories which are smatier than those in other parts of the world, the eco- nomists preach. Humans are funny crea- tures. Once a theory is ac- cepted as the truth, wedon't question its validity. At one time, il was generally accept- ed that lead could be tured into gold. Now we believe that big plants protect our jobs. But the Canadian Federa- tion of Independent Business didi't believe the story about bigger plants being better. So il gathered some statistics from Statistics Canada and ran same checks, The results were startling, Between 1969 and 1977, 72% = ahnost three-quarters ~ af all new jobs created in this country originated with small firms that employ few- er than 20 workers each! But that's only the tip of the statistical iceberg, In manufacturing, the smaller firms created 317 800 new jobs during the 1969 to 1977 ‘time period. Larger firms, meanwhile, dropped 124 800 employees! The net addition of new jobs in manufacturing during this period, therefore, was only 193,000 — despite the enormous number of new jobs generated by small firms What do the statistics tell us about big business in Ca- nada? At the very feast, big business, which is mostly for- eign-owned, is not contribut- ing new jobs for Canadian workers — a definite cost to the economy at a time when unemployment is a pressing issue, However, the statistics don't. tell the whole story. There are no statistics to sep: arate the medium-sized firms (those with more than 20 em: ployees but fewer thana few hundred) from the large firms. Since medium-sized Canadian-owned firms have also been expanding inwana- da, the conclusion is inescap- able: big foreign-owned busi- ness is shrinkingin this coun- try, : AI\ of the big business in- centives offered by govern- ment over the past decade have not prevented a loss of thousands of big business jobs. Obviously, the future lies with smaller businesses, Government policies must teflect this new-found truth, “Think small" is an edito message from tha Canadien Federation of independent Businags ro AS pepe ge mnt ae