+f CIRCULATION. TERRACE - Andy Wightman 635-6157

| EDITORIAL

Page 4, The Herat, Wednesday, December 27, 1979
TERRACE/KITIMAT

daily herald

General Office - 435-6357 Published by
Circulation - 635-6357 _ Sterling Pubtishers
PUBLISHER . Laurie Mallett
‘GEN. MANAGER - Knox Coupland
EDITOR - Greg Middleton

KITIMAT - Pat Zelinski 632-2747,

. KITIMAT OFFICE . 632-2747

Published every weekday at 3212 Kalum Street,
Terrace, B.C. A member of Varified Circulation.
Authorized as second class mall. Registration number
1201. Postage paid in cash, return postage guaranteed.

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Terrace is not a town for big-time criminals.

: What we get here are the scuzzy, petty crimes of

ithe bored, the drunken and the dregs of society.
it is a pretty pitiful scene.

There is, on the average, a couple of dozen
assaults a month. You can watch them, if you

_. wish, by simply picking out the right beer parlor

and wandering in about closing time. When the

> risk of being cut off from the supply of the galden

brew is no longer there, the resentments boil
over into the street for a few, scuffling minutes.
Perhaps a quarter of them end up in court. They
are usually ragged, haphazard affairs.

There will also be the usual complement of
breaking and entering. A last ditch attempt by
the too lazy or wasted to make their booze money
for the week. Of the dozen or more, possibly half
of them will end up as charges.

_ Fines and probation will be meted out to the
‘ adults. Jail will be the judges only alternative, if
there: are enough convictions or an em.

“barrassingly long string of charges. Juveniles

‘just have more probation tacked onto their
~ probation. IH will all be ignored until they are old
-enough to face adult court. They may get a
“surprise when face their firs! few fines. Usually,
“Hf the patterns continue, theyll face a jail sen-
‘tence but once they’ve served their first the fear
of that Is gone. Jail will only mean a chance to
“renew old acquaintences. .

2 Wilful damage always tops the list. The picture
“painted by. that phrase is of a child indulging ina
“temper auivroni destroying his dish and
throwing his. food around. Mostly It is just the
‘beer bottle casually lobbed through a window. It
is an act af contempt. A fruitless gesture,
frequently an unthinking one. .

The dope smokers are still with us. The police
still arrest a dozen or more a month. it seems to
be mostly almost by accident now. The charge
should probably read “flagrant public use of
marijuana” rather than possession. The fines
about equal those of the minor liquor offences.

We do have our rapes, those brutal intrusions.
‘We probably have a lot more than the one or two
that are reported. Maybe that will change as the

jaws do.

All in all, we don’t have a criminal element
here, just an anti-social one. The question is what
are we going to do with them. For those who
indulge in this kind of behavior the courts dan‘t :
seem to be a deterrent.

Most of them aren’t too embarrassed at. get-
ting their names In the paper. And jail, it is only
an unpleasant inconvenience.

The answer Is probably in prevention. Light
the places where the hangers out congregate and
patrol and protect private property with
vigilance. Many of the streets in this town are 100
dark. The pubs are too large and overcrowded.
Drunks, and It is the intoxicated who do a lot of
the damage, are tolerated too much. ~

Make it less likely for the petty criminal to do
his handiwork, if you are aware of a problem
area ask for better lighting and more police
patrols. Don’t just sit behind locked doors and let
the jungle close in around you.

HtRMAN

“Take a seat. It'll be about two days.”

“Make sure you tip him well — he may be armed.”

TOKYO (Reuter) — Rice
farmers are important to Ja-

| IN JAPAN
Rice: farms influential |

cond World War. Today
ere are about five million

. They save the country ‘farming households.

pan
from importing one of its
staple foods, And their votes
help to keep the ruling party
in office. .
_, Their farms are so small
on the narrow plain between
the mountains and the sea
that they cannot hope to
match the ultramodern
elficiency of Japanese in-
dustry. But this year's
bumper harvest could mean
a five-million-ton surplus in
1978, close to half the
country’s annual needs.
This is the estimate of
agriculture ministry of-
ficials, who say that to keep
the farmers in business the
government pays out 41,017
yen (about $210) for every

These payments to
stabilize rice farmers’
earnings account for about
one-sixth of the ministry's
annual budget, but officials
do not like to call them
subsidies,

Japanese farms, once
much bigger, were broken
up and the land was
distributed to peasants in
reforms sponsored by the oc-
cupying Americans after the

VANCOUVER (CP) — Al-
though Bank of Montreal
spokesmen insist that their
Instabank automated tellers
are foolproof, criminals are
starting to exploit the
banking industry's latest
foray into computerization.

Fraudulent use of the
acttal machines is difficult,
30 criminals are hitting the
most vulnerable point—the
human element or, more
precisely, careless
customers who leave their
secret system access code
number lying around.

The aulomated tellers are
computer terminals
operated by a plastic card
with a coded, magnetic strip

. and a personal identity

number punched in by the
customer.

Located autside a bank,
the terminals can be used
around the clock to deposit
funds, transfer money
between accounts and make
daily maximum withdrawals
of $100,

Larry MacDonald, Bank of
Montreal spokesman, says
tie code has never been
broken, despite attempts by
several rival banks.

Buta detective in the city's
fraud squad says this hasn't
stopped criminals from
stealing cards and obtaining
the personal identity
numbers.

“People have trouble
remembering numbers, so
sometimes they write them
down on a piece of paper and
pul it in their wallets,” says
Del. Robert Young,

The average farm is little
bigger than a hectare (2.4
acres). Farms in Europe are
often 20 to §0 times as big.

One reason the farmer is
So protected here is that as a
group of islands far removed
from its allies, Japan makes
a special point of being able
to feed itself,

Another is ‘that farmers
are voters, and constituency
boundaries have not kept
pace with the rapid move of
the Japanese into the cities,

A candidale who needs to
poll 100,000 VYotes'in the clty
might need only’ 30,000 ina
rural constituency, and
sometimes farmers travel to
the elty to help a politician’s
campaign, says a senior
member of the ruling Liberal
Democratic Party (LDP).

Such has been the party’s
hold on post-war Japanese
politics that it can afford to
brush aside calls for new
constituency boundaries by
saying this would reduce the
influence of the countryside
and hasten the flight from
the land. '

LDP and agriculture
ministry officials say they

want to encourage farmers
to grow other crops, and
there is a pilot plan to con-
Solidate the land into larger
farms.

But rice farming is so lucr-
ative that farmers do not al-
ways want to learn different
ways of farming, and land
prices are so high in the
coastal plain that few of
them want to dispose of so
valuable an asset,

The concentration of land
in the hands of a few bigger
farmers would also be
against the philosophy of the
land reform, says one
ministry official.

The government pays.-
fixed _ surfs . for the, cond
version of paddies or:

mandarin orchards to other
crops which Japan imports,
and it encourages parttime
farmers to let their holdings
to others who live full-time
off the land.

Japan, like West Ger-
many— another country
with many small farms—has
many people who work full-
time in towns and part-time
on the land. ;

Also like West Germany,
Japan's farms are highly
mechanized because the
government's support oi

a MACHINE FRAUD
It’s. automatic crime now

For example, he says,

some people will even write.

down a combination number
to the office safe and stick it
on the wall, .

In the United States, where
automated tellers are more
common, customer surveys
in New York and Wisconsin
show that more than half the
customers keep the code
numbers in their wallets or
write them on the cards,

MacDonald says it is the
bank's policy to reimburse

AUS. group set up to pro-
mote electronie fund tran-
Sfers, the term used to en-
compass a wide range of
computerized banking
schemes, estimates that 10
per cent of that country’s
financial instituttons provide
or plan to provide a com-
puterized service.

Competing financial in-
stitutions such as banks and
credit unions also hope to get
a larger partion of each cus-
tomer's business by

CREDIT
CRIME

any customer whose account
is robbed. But reports in U.S.
publications indicate the
customer may run into
problems.

—A Ohio bank refused to
reimburse a woman who leat

1,350 after her ¢
stolen. The bank claimedaal
was negligent.

—In Chicago, a women’s
card stolen in the mail was
used to empty her $800 ac-
count and create a $1,200
overdraft. The bank told her
of the overdraft a -month
later and it was another

.month before she got her

money back, -

—At a Georgia bank, the
computer tape containing
data on electronic with-
drawals and deposits was
destroyed. The bank had to
depend on customer com-
plaints to straighten out the
mess.

eenen|

promoting the convenience
of a single card,

Although the rush towards
such schemes is slowing
down, many major banks in
Europe, Japan, the United
States and Canada are still
developing systems.

The Bank of Montreal
began installing automated
tellers two years ago and.
now has 13 machines in the
Vancouver area. The
Canadian Imperial Bank of
Commerce has 10 cash dis-
pensers, a simpler machine
which gives out a maximum
of $300 a customer, and
American Express has a
dispenser at Vancouver
International Airport.

Young says thefts from the

nk of Montreal's .
aulomated tellers are still a
relatively minor problem

agriculture has enablec
them to invest in modern
equipment. But often it is
used for only a few days a
year because their holdings
are so small.

The government's efforts
foster... «: damestic
agriculture, even ‘though it
may be inefficient by outside
standards, leads to pressure
on Japan, especially from
America, to make it easier
for American farm produce
to enter the country.

Since the Second World
War, one major item in the
Japanese diet, soya, has

played a much smaller part .
in domestic fanning, jand Jt <;.
now i

is imported ‘in big
quantities from America. It
costs almost four times as
much to produce here as to
import it.

The area sown to wheat
and barley has also shrunk in
line with past campaigns to
gtow enough rice. .

But the impending glut of
this staple food will pose the
government some problems,
for it is expensive by worid
slandards and it is of a -
variely not readily exported
in big quantities to other
rice-eating countries.

because “they represent a
small number of the total
number of places where cash
is available,”

Tilegal use of ordinary
credit cards is the most
wide-spread problem, he
Says.

Large numbers of credit
cards are delivered through
the mail to old addressea,
Some of the cards are in-
tercepted in the mail by a
dishonest person who may
seli the card,

It is common practice for
criminals to fly across the
continent with stolen credit
cards and ring up huge bills
before credit card agencies
can publicize the theft, the
dstective says.

As far as Instabank cards
are concerned, MacDonald
says the personal identity
number and the card are
sent through the mails
separately, making it more
difficult for thefts. Citing
security reasons, he refuses
to discuss details but says
there are several other
safeguards which ensure
that the system cannot be
abused. :

For example, if a
customer tries two wrong
numbers the machine
retains the card, Only one
copy of the tapes recording
the transactions is made and
only one person in Van-
couver has access to it. .

The bank spokesman says
the only information tellers
can learn about these cards
are the customer’s name and
his Master Charge number.

CONSUMER —
COMMENT |

Does UPC mean anything to you?

No, it doesn’t stand for Ukelele Players‘
Convention or even Underprivileged Consumers.
UPC is the abbreviation for Universal Product

Code.

Still doesn’t ring a bell? Well, you’ve probably
been seeing It fairly often in the supermarket.
UPC is that smail patch of black lines with
numbers underneath which appears on
prepackaged grocery items.

The: first five numbers and corresponding

| black fines identify the manufacturer; the

second set of five digits identifies the product—

t its name, size, color, flaver, quality, grade and
so on. Contrary to what many assume, the price

is not included in the code..
The code is being placed on products in an-

; ticipation of the adoption of a new computer
: operated system designed to speed up the lines at

the checkout counter and eliminate much of the -
time stores spend on stock keeping and ordering
supplies.

The system would work this way: The coded
package is passed over a scanner which reads
the code and sends the product’s name ta the in-
store computer, where it's matched with the
price. This information is then displayed to the
customer on a small screen at the cashier’s
terminal and printed on the sales stip.

The advantages for the customer include the
faster checkouts mentioned above, and a more
detailed sates slip. Instead of a list of prices
where you have to guess which was the 89 cent
item and which was 79 cents, your sIlp might look
something like this: ;

Milk 2 Litres 1.16
Peas 1 Ib. 69
Butter 1 Ib. 1,34
‘Head lettuce 35

Since the product will not have to be priced to
enable the cashier fo ring it up, stores will

- ellmiriate “the cost of pricing thousands of in-

dividual items daily. Instead, for the consumer’s
information. the price will be shown on the shelf
beneath the item.

Some consumers have expressed concern that
shoppers may lose their sense of the cost of an
item if the price is not marked on it. Possibly
some solution can be worked out to remove this
concern. One suggestion is that customers be
supplied with markers to mark prices on the
Product themselves, as is presently -dones in
discoviit stores”* er ae A TR

Although UPC markings are now appearing on
many Items, introduction of the system in B.C.
may be some time away. So far, only one store in
the country (in Darvat, Quebec) has Installed the
necessary equipment to read the coding.
Supermarkets and consumer organizations are
watching the situation there with considerable
interest.

THINK SMALL

BY JIM SMITH

The Campus Round-Up

They haven't started shoot-

dust as Proctor & Gamble uses

Ing yet but Canada’s universl-
ties are caugh! up ina slam-
bang Intercollegiate battle
nonetheless. And there may
be some casualties - ihe tax-
payers’ budgets, if nothing else
— hefore the dust settles,

These are not the best of
times for the schools of higher
education, Now that a univer-
silty degree doesn't guarantee
an Interview let alone a job,
students are less than eager {o
lay out the best years of thelr
lives plus thousands of dollars
to acquire a worthless piece af
paper, (Knowledge forthe sake
of knowledge is a worthy ob-
jective bat it doesn't pul food
on the table.)

There's @ strong dose of
irony in the universitles’ pre-
dicamient. After all, the uni-
versities produce the civil ser-
vants who ‘‘plan" ournational
future. Atid one of those civil
service ‘“plans’* brought about
the horrendous overeapansion
of facilities with which the
schools are now saddled. But
Irony, white amusing, doesn't
help pay the bills - either ¢he
universities® or taxpayers’,

Universities receive govera-
ment grants on the basis of en-
rolment, a system which en-
courages schools to pull oul
all the stops in their reerull-
ment campaigns. Lately, unt:
versitles and community col-
leges have added sophisticated
advertising campaigns to thelr
arsenals of recrulting weapons,

At this very moment, post-
secondary schools from cugst
lo coust are using films, radio
and television commercials and

Magazine ads tu lure sludents

advertising (o attract custom-
ers for the firm’s soaps.

The internecine warfare,
fought via the ad agencies, may
be good news for broadcasters
and publishers, bud it’s bad
news for the taxpayer who
winds up paying the shot. And
the tactic penalizes those uni-
versities that are most conscd
entious with public funds and
use thelr grants for education
sather than promotion,

Unfortunately, the funding
syslem guarantees recruiting
abuses. And schools which
must resort to selling them-
selves like soap flakes are also
prone to lowering their aca-
demic standards to hang on
to the bodles they have recruit-
ed. Academic ‘standards are
not part of the government's
funding system.

The whole system Is unfair
to ‘the responsible educators
and lo the taxpayers, Obvieus-
ly, a better method of fund-
ing our universities and cal-
leges - a sysiem which ensures
efficiency in earalment and
maintains high academic stan-
dards - |s needed immediately.
But, until that system can be’
devised, the provincial govern
ments should order an imme-
diate halt to university recruit.’
ing techniques that involve ad
campaigns. With our high level
of government deficits, Cana-_
dlany would be grateful for
every cust-culling efficiency
ihe civil servants can offer.

“Think small” is an editorial
message from the Canadian
Federation of Independent

Business