Page 4, The Herald, Tuesday, September 18, 1979 TERRACE/KITIMAT daily herald General Office - 635-4357 Published by Circulation - 635-4257 - Sterling Publishers GEN, MANAGER - Knox Coupland EDITOR - Greg Middleton CIRCULATION - TERRACE - 635-6357 KITIMAT OFFICE - 632-2747 Published every weekday af 3212 Kalum Street, Terrace, B.C. A member of Varified Circulation. Authorlzed aa second class mail. Registration number 1201. Postage paid in cash, return posiage guaranteed, NOTICE OF COPYRIGHT The Herald retaina full, complete and sole copyright In any advertisement produced and-or any editorial or photographic content published In ihe Herald, Reproduction ts not permitted without the written permission of the Publisher. EDITORIAL The regional district board for Kitimat-Stikine is looking into dog - control for the Thornhill area. Among the complaints which promp- ted the regional government to consider putting a clamp on the canine population in this outlying suberb are the concerns of parents of children attending. Copper : Mountain School, where numbers of > animals congregate. ; There is bound to be strong feelings about controlling the family pet, as people are about as emotional when it comes to Fido as they are about their children. The fact of the matter Is that dogs have been increasing in number in this area and there are enough people who are not considerate enough of either their neighbors or thelr pets to keep them from roaming. The real shame Is that It is probably the animals who are going to be im- unded and possibly even destroyed nstead of the owners who don‘t seem to realize that Rover is just that and a danger as well as a nuisance to others. EDITOR'S JOURNAL BY GREG MIDDLETON formerly The CBC crew from Prince Rupert was in town r, iF aN > < SCONE RAR . HOT STUFF Uranium cartel charges WASHINGTON (CP) — The Canadian-led uranium pean i cartel att pro up world uranium prices in the early 1970s is again coming under close scrutiny in U.S. courts, on Capitol Hill and in the media. There are fresh allegations of Canadian threats if U.S. investigations into the cart! go too deeply, and a promise of renewed efforts to pry Information about the cartel’s activities irom the Progressive Conservative government that took power in Ottawa last May. But sources in Ottawa, and former Liberal government. members who helped run the cartel between 1972 and 1974 along with France, South Af- ica, Australia and Britain, - auggeat the federal govern- ment may soon find reasons for keeping a 1976 secrecy order on cartel operations firmly in place. The cartel was basically an agreement to set prices and divide markets for Uranium - sales: among participating countries,. It was set up in 1972 after the United States closed its borders to uranium imports and ended in 1975 when rising world energy prices made the cartel un- necessary. Sinclair Stevens, now treasury board president but leading parliamentary critic of the 1976 secrecy. order when he Friday to introduce two new staff members who will ..was in the opposition, Jast be feeding material to the regional programs for this area. In addition to letting Terrace residents see some of the faces which go with the voices, station manager Jim Roache expressed some conserns the CBC has about reaction to a move to FM. Roache says the changeover,which will mean you will have to have an FM receiver to pick up the station, isn’t being made lightly. While there are some people with older cars and veteran tube-style radios who will be inconvenienced, Roache says the majority of the radiog now have the EM band as well as the AM band the station is broadcasting on now. . While Roache was concerned abcut the listener's reaction ,or more specifically the newspaper's reaction as it was the Lake’s District News in Burns Lake which protested the changeover there, he sees it as inevitable. Like many other things, tube-style AM transmitters are cutdated and becoming too costly to maintain. Roache says, however, the station will keep the AM tranamitters working.as long as possible after the newer, solid-state FM transmitters are in place.’ But, as they go the way of all flesh and obsolete machinery, so goes your AM signal. moe, There’s no need to rush out and buy a new radio though, it will be a year or possibly two yet, and ac- cordiug to Roache, you will get a better signal and be’ able to get the station at greater distances. Also in the news world , in the Canadian Paper- workers Union newspaper, the CPU Journal, an ar- ticle outlying labor's gains in the last election gives praise to the CPU vote in Kitimat for Its part in dumping Liberal cabinet minister Iona Campagnolo and electing NDP Jim Fulton. A good part of the paper is devoted to the threat of etrikebreaking . ‘ In another article, however, one which dealt with the B.C. election, Frank Howard's win didn't rate a mention, A good part of the paper deals with the issue of strike breaking. This issue includes some of the traditional political invective such as the description of how God made the seab out of the parts left over after some of the more Icathsome creatures were constructed. The paper also, however, promises to one nome of the scabs at the Kenara mill at Boise ade. And speaking of Frank Howard, what does our MLA do on a Sunday afternoon? Well, last Sunday he apent a little of itin a local pool hail, Not just talking to the younger constituents but playing a little snooker too. How did he do? Won one , lost one. week said he favored ending the secrecy. But he added he first had to check to see what commitments had been made to other countries. Gulf Oi] Corp, a par- ticipant through a Canadian subsidiary in the cartel, plans to ask Ottawa to release documents about its role in the cartel. Gulf wants to use the information in its defence ina U.S. case alleg- ing Gulf violated anti-trust laws | by participating in the By GLENN In Washington, journalist Jack Anderson claims he ab- tained U.S. justice depart- ment documents showing Canadian officials pressured the state department with threats of retaliation against the Alaska oi] peipline if a justide department probe of the cartel resulted in criminal prosecution. There was no prosecution. But Donald Macdonald, energy minister in 1972 when the cartel was organized, said it was “very unlikely” any threats were ever made. In a telephone interview from Toronto where he now practises law, Macdonald SOMERVILLE said the state department was told clearly that the activities of Gulf's Canadian subsidiary and other cartel -participants were allowed under Canadian law. Furthermore, Macdonald said, ‘there was no doubt about the fact of the im- propriety of U.S. actions” in first imposing an embargo against uranium imports, then trying to force Canadian subsidiarles of U.S. corporations into releasing information about the cartelS OPERATIONS. Macdonald added the current federal government TODAY IN HISTORY Sept. 18, 1979 . Thelate Indian leader Mo- bandas Gandhi began a death fast 47 years ago today’ — in 1932 — to dramatize his campaign for an end to dis- crimination agalnst the s0- called Untouchables, the lowest of the castes. The fast ended six days later, however, when the pact of Poona allowed the Un: touchables to enter all temples and schools and to use all Indian roads. oF 1810 — Chile declared its independance from Spain. 185 — The first issue of the. New York Times appeared, 1895 — Former prime minister John Diefenbaker was born. ; 1934 —- The League of Nations admitted the Soviet Union. 191 — United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold died in a plane crash. Letters welcome ‘tne Herald welcomes its readers comments. All letters to the editor of general public interest will be printed. We do, however, retain the right to refuse to print letters on grounds of libel or bad taste. We may algo edit letters for style and length. : All letters to be considered for publication must be signed. possible may want to consider the Australian and British governments’ decisions to vent the United States from ‘requiring information about the cartel before Ot- fawa makes a decision. Those countries feel U.S. request amount to attempts to apply U.S. laws in other countries. An Ottawa source, familiar with cabinet meetings at the time the cartel operated, denied there was talk of retaliatory ac- tlons against Alaskan oil and gas pipeline unless justice department probes into uranium eased up, He added that without the cartel, it is likely that such Canadian towns’ ag Uranium City, Sask., and Elliott Lake, Ont., would have svifered se- verely because mines would have closed. The Progressive Con- servatives may evaluate the cartel’s role differently now that they are in power, the « source suggested. If much information about it is released, then U.S. sub- sidiaries of such companies ‘as Denison Mines Ltd, of Toronto may be placed in a difficult legal position. The uranium cartel and Canada’s role in it is being raised on Capitol Hill befare the Senate judiciary com- mittee. That rommittee has been after John Shenefield, -the justice department's anti-trust chief, for weeks to turn over information the department gathered but didn't use in a prosecution of cartel participants. According to political aides, the committee feels the time is right to pursue the issue because Shenefield must get Senate approval to become chief U.S. deputy attorney-general, the No. 2 lawmakers’ spot in the government. If he contlnues to hold back documents on the cartel, that approval will be Jeapardizied, the sides note, = _ PRISON FEATURE. | Why lock them up anyway? avateta’e’aTare"67e"y 4's" O70°028'4-9,0,4.0,0.9.8.0.0,0,0,9.0.9.0.1.05,0,0,6, SSR RS Re oS SO AS Soy VANCOUVER (CP) -— Some criminals should be pensioned off, not locked up, because it would cost less and accomplish more, says clinical psychologist Dr. Alfred Keliner, Keliner, an assislant professor in the criminology department at Simon Fraser University, has worked ag a therapist at the maximum-sec7rity Millhaven and medium-security Collins Bay and Joyceville penitentiaries in Ontario, “gome B.C. inatitutions that I can't name," and several provincial in- stitutions in B.C. and Ontario. He is a consultant to the federal parole service. Given statements such as his pension scheme, it isn’t surprising that some in the Canadian Penitentiary Service have labelled him a troublemaker, a label he seems to like, He thinks that locking up most of the criminals now in prison is a waste of lime and money. “Canada locka up more people than any other country in the world for longer periods for lesser of- feences. “We punish without effect. People Last part of an 11-part feature esac er0n 0167747650. 8/0.02 8.4.08. SRS SM eae care ay saat By,PETER KINSEY go into jail, come out, and are more od ew dete dangerous.” ' - ; The har. tore'‘should have saya, butt without mae he says, but ent is. justifi ee ke i heatuets the deviant behavior it is trying to correct. “The m¥jority of people in federal prisons sireétin’for breaking and entering, but government and police figures show ‘that breaking and entering is not a crime pursued by authorities. ; “Less than one per cent of the people who commit breaking and entering are locked up. The cost (to keep them in prison) is several times the cost of all hreak-ias in Canada -- and the person comes out al better criminal than when he went “The victim |s not relmbursed for his losses, but pays taxes for the privilege of having the man come out and rob him again.” cent should be ‘used “to pay crimi- nals not to commit crime.” “Make it like a pension: every month the person is not charged, he gets paid.” Keltner says the first time he suggested this alternative to in- carceration, ‘the response was outrage — ‘They don’t deserve it.’ “T don't deserve having someone come out of jail to rob me,” he replies. “The payment would be chea and safer, and everybody wins, but people reject this." But what about those who would collect the pension and still commit “Even if 50 per cent of those getting pald were to cheat, we would still be ahead 10 times what we are doing now. “We should only consider what works, what we need, not who deserves what. What do citizens need, what does society need now? “‘As long as the public screams for blood under the assumption that it is a deterrent — which it is not — politicians will not change the system because they could not survive.” elstetitabetabtetel ciabatta btebtotetolelsleptieeneceeipiee aeibetatdebl SS eS aes OOS SS ad mance echatatieabatetetstetetbatatetdbatbabebitstihiDl ahodeteceteteZeceeledatedesesetetetateteda tac iee aN ae SR SMR KH SS a a - COMMENT By STAN PERSKY t with law-and-jackboot-order -cries arising jon various Tory quarters on behalf of capital punishment, outlawing strikes, and an economic strategy that advances under the banner of ‘‘All Power to the Private Sector,''I guess we can Con- sider ourselves lucky to be left with any unem- ployment _ insurance protection ; at ali. If MP Paul McCrossan has his way the’s the Con- servative insurance acturay who drew up the UIC cutback proposals leaked by the government last week), there won't be any protection fer pregnant women, sick workers,the seasonally employed, out- of-work persons whose spouses have steady jobs and . those ingrates who have the gall to quit their jobs. No doubt, these innovations will appeal to the blood- lust of some. However, if one stops cheering this heroic blow against the shiftless long enough to think about it, this does seem like an odd moment tomake life more difficult than it already is. Consider the present circumstances: 800,000 unemployed; 50,000 “boat people” clambering onto Canadian shores needing jobs; the announcement just last week that 2,000 workers will soon be laid-off, courtesy of two giant U.S. corporations (Swift's in Winnipeg and ITT+rayonier in Quebec); a major recession in the offing; and headlong scramble by the government to sell off what litte control of natural resources we've retained through crown corporations to the very oil companies whose , gouging profits are common knowledge. I realize common decency is not as fashionable as it ance was, but I thought hard times were when you gave people a hand rather than kicking those who are already down. ; Those few of us who are less than enthused about Mr. Clark’s efforts to return us to the glorious days of the 19th Century when humble workers knew their proper places(under the factory-owners’ thumbs), now face the dismal prospect of trying to reason with the critics of UIC. Although they announce themselves as simply opponents of UIC “abuses {who isn’t?), one ' suspects they are moved by deeper and darker thoughts. As Michael) Walker, chief economist of the right-wing Fraser Institute, said in support of the plan to slash UIC, ‘We found that unemployment insurance increasesumemploymentby almost 25 per cent.” And all along | thought it was a shortage of jobs that increased unemployment. “It reduces the cost of unemployment go people can be more choosy and at the same'time draws people into the labour force briefly ‘ani théti onto unem- ployment," Mr. Walker continues. “It provides an incentive to join the preocess of being unemployed. ‘lf Mr. Walker is tobe believed there are apparently 200,000 Canadians being needlessly ‘'choosy’’ or scheming their way into short-term jobs in order to advance to the luxuries of life on UIC, That leaves us with a mere 600,000 or so legitimately out-of-work, whose plight can be safely ignored while we grind our teeth over the cheaters. If underlying the criticism of UIC abuses (yes, Uncle Hubert, I’m sure there are some abuses) is a more fundamental opposition, much the same can be said of those inveighing against strikes. Here, for example, is Ottawa columnist Richard Jackson working himself into a lather against various disturbers of the peace: ‘What about you? Have you had enough of ...public service strikes? Never fear, the solution is at hand. The new Conservative “Parliament could strike a blow for the taxpayer against the public service strike by simply outlawing strikes in essential services,” declares Mr. Jackson. By the column’s end , Mr. Jackson has _. your local liquor store clerk, bargaining for better wages, equated with the common criminal (‘The Liberals, who so loved the criminals as to put their welfare above that of society, were equally solicitous of the public service striker,” he foams). Is it strikes, or trade unions themselves, that Mr. Jackson rants against. Underneath all this is a philosophical argument. The New Right believes that more order, more obedience, less democracy, less sagsing back authority will get us on the right track once more. In the clamour that engues over UIC in the coming months, there will be little time or sufficient silence for philosophy. We'll have to make do with pointing out that among those ‘‘seasonally employed'’ workers the Tories want tokeep off UIC there are a hundred $5 to $6-an- hour shoreworkers in the packing plants for every fabled $50,000-s-year fisherman claiming benefits, ATRILL THINKS By THOMAS ATRILL “The lake is rising fast,” he said with a note of disbelief. It was many years ago, testing a small boat in a local lake. The young man who thought the lake was rising had consumed a few beers and was horsing around, rocking and trying to flip the boat, Unknown to him, the floor boards had come unstuck from the sides and water was pouring in. We scurried ashore without incident, but I am reminded of our disaster whenever someone mentions the rapidly rising price of gold in recent mes. Incredible as it may seem, our self-styled economists have not grasped this basic economic truth: gold is the yardstick by which all currency is judged and valued. Gold is the constant; it is money value that fluctuates. The horizon is not rising; the boat is sinking! ose of you who have been spoon-fed Keynes and Galbraith will, no doubt, dismiss my ideas a of no .consequence. That !s your privilege, But, if you are one of those who have seen the series of failures of modern economists, who cannot even agree on what is happening on the economic scene, you will heed the advice that Ihave for you: Acquire gold. Buy it, pan it or inherit it, Pay the going price and be prepared to see it fluctuate and even drop now and then. Don't listen to the ‘experts’; they will ridicute you. Buy silver as well, if you wish. It au also hold Havalue.§ deit ina safe place, far from . e a sere. rg or the time being, Also, keep it e may be in for some very.t times, with gold (as well as food supelien) oh reine those And then again, things might right themselves and ‘our efforts will haye bee ow in advance? n for nothing. © Who can |