Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - June 10, 1955, Winnipeg, Manitoba Freedom of Trade i Liberty of religion Equality of civil rights Pri Iid published daily except sunday by Winnipeg free pres. Company limited. 300 car Tai set Winnipeg. Manitoba. Authorized As Mccond Clau matter Tor the department Ottawa Tom Kent editor Victor Sifton fru ident Public intr Grant Dexter associate editor win. 1xjrd general manager Winnipeg Friday june 1955 Reward of competence the results of the Ontario election on thursday May have disappointed some politicians but they can have sur prised hardly any one. Premier Frost s administration was expected to repeat its landslide Victory of 1951. It did and in the conservatives polled almost As Large a percentage of the popular vote and obtained nearly As Large a share of seats in the legislature As they did four years ago. The conservative Victory reflects the satisfaction of Ontario voters with the manner in which their affairs have been handled by or. Frost. Since he became Premier six years ago he has Given the province generally sound and competent if unspectacular government. He has been helped by the fact that Ontario has been enjoying a period of Prosperity and expansion. And no major Issue has Arisen around which an election could be successfully fought none at least that the voters considered to be sufficiently important. The results Are also indicative of the great elec toral inertia that any opposition party must overcome if it Hopes to defeat a provincial administration that has been in Power for any length of time and which has been giving satisfactory government. It is an accepted fact in provincial politics that a government which has had time to Consoli Date itself is extremely difficult to dislodge. One does not have to look far for examples. Alberta has had a social credit government since 1935 the Kcf have been in Power in Saskatchewan since 1944 in Manitoba the liberals have ruled since 1922 and in Ontario the present conservative regime began in 1943. The voting in Ontario s Industrial areas on thursday reinforced the conviction that the Kcf is no longer a Power among the workers. Tie Kcf s percentage of the popular vote dropped by two per cent and As Kcf Leader Donald m Acdonald ruefully admitted in the Industrial areas where we thought we d get in we just did at the same time it is Clear that the liberals in Ontario have not yet recovered from the leadership to which they subjected 15 years ago nor will they recover their popularity with the electorate by the barnstorming and oratorical tactics they used in this election. In 1951 the liberals pretty Well Defeated themselves under the uninspired and erratic command of a Leader most of them did not want. In this Campaign or. Farquhar Oliver conducted himself More sensibly than his predecessor or. Walter Thomson did in 1951, and it was hoped that he might prove to be a More formidable threat to or. Frost. But the threat did not materialize and the fortunes of the Ontario liberals today Are Little better than they were four years ago. You should let me show you the big City . Surplus disposal program or. Benson reassures us or. Ezra Taft Benson the United states Secretary of agriculture addressed a meeting of the Alberta Cana Dian clubs in Calgary on Friday. Following Are some excerpts from his talk in which or. Benson gives his views on the . Agricultural surplus disposal program. Recently or. C. D. Howe can Ada s minister of Trade and Commerce claimed that Proi Trani is have nor a bad effect on Canadian sales in overseas markets. Paper housing for the old the Manitoba government has now expounded a policy about housing for needy old age pensioners. But the announcement made on monday and subsequently commented on by interested parties such As the Canadian legion has not clarified the government s intentions on the contrary the whole matter is now More confused than Ever. The origin of the government scheme lies in a speech made by or. Robert Bend As health minister during the last session of the legislature. It was Earnest it was squarely based on moral arguments and although vague in practical application it appeared in principle to commit the government to some definite sch Fae of help for pensioners housing. Premier Campbell quickly made it Plain that or. Bend was expressing his own views and the Cabinet had made no definite decision. There obviously has been continued difficulty during the intervening three months in making any decision. What has emerged bears every Mark of Compromise Between two views in principle it satisfies or. Bend and others who want to provide Aid in practice it May Well be ineffective enough not to trouble greatly those ministers who think that the government should keep out of the housing business completely. The announced scheme takes As its basis the existing limited dividend provisions of the Federal housing act. Under these a private corporation formed to build rental housing May if approved by Central mortgage and housing corporation receive a Low interest mortgage loan of. Up to 90 per cent of the , for a term As Long As 50 years. Though these conditions Are generous there has hitherto been no Tush of organizations to take on limited dividend housing. The Manitoba plan is to encourage municipalities and charitable groups to do so by offering an outright Grant of the remaining 10 per cent of capital required up to certain maximum amounts and provided that the housing is rented specifically to needy aged people. A this plan has definite merits. But there Are also considerable difficulties about it. In the simple form expounded by the provincial government it seems to be a purely paper exercise. For it runs flatly against the Federal practice which is to require that the organizations conducting limited dividend housing schemes should have an equity of their own in the project in other words if they get a 10 per cent provincial Grant the Federal mortgage would be reduced below 90 per cent. There is some talk of a subterfuge by which this might be avoided. But at this Point the plan which the provincial government has been clarifying for three months becomes lost to the Best of our understanding in. Confusion. There is however a principle to keep sight of. The provincial government should not be a party to circumventing the intentions of Federal housing legislation. A scheme which requires that is certainly no proper Way for the province to become involved in the charitable work of helping old people. All the principles of this matter Are in danger of being blurred by compromises. The Basic problem is this there unquestionably is some real distress among a minority of old people which Low rental housing can relieve but once government becomes involved in this Field it is very difficult to now where to Stop. There is consequently a Strong Case against becoming involved at All. But the provincial government has abandoned this Case. It has taken on the principle of being involved. And the fact that its initial scheme is tortuous and ineffective is unlikely to save it from practical As Well As theoretical involvement. The pressure now will be somehow to make the scheme work. The government s attitude seems to be to rely purely on the practical clumsiness of the scheme to keep Down the expenditure under it. To rely ;