Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - May 2, 1961, Winnipeg, Manitoba Freedom of v Liberty of religion Equality of printed Dally except by Winnipeg free am company. United 300 Galton. Street. Winnipeg Manitoba. Author Len u cond clan matter by. The Pott office department Ottawa. J. W. Sifton Shane Mackay publisher and Vlee Preir tent Grant Dexter editor emeritus m. Western1 associate editor Winnipeg tuesday May .2, 1961 a japanese or. Fleming f a japanese Trade Mission has been holding talks with Canadian Cabinet ministers in Ottawa. Its purpose no doubt is to dissuade or Fleming from imposing the fur ther restrictions on japanese imports loudly demanded by our Industrial lobbies. Although Japan is our third Market and a particularly valuable one agriculture the government has forced the japanese to accept Export limitations not imposed on any other country. Or. Fleming pro fesses to believe that we. Can act in this fashion without jeopardizing our own place in the japanese Market. It appears not. To have been noted by or Fleming though it must have been or. Hees that the japanese Are suffering from some of the same difficulties of which we complain. Among these As reported by the Canadian commercial counsellor in Tokyo Are a chronic shortage of Domestic capital for. Industrial expansion in creased Competition from Europe and North America in Export Trade and a faster growth of imports than of exports. In addition Japan faces the loss of an estimated millions because of the . Save the Dollar program. Costs of living in Japan Are flow rising at a rate that could Lead to Industrial unrest. These facts Are set Forth in foreign Trade a publication of the department of Trade and Commerce for april 22. The japanese Mission however was in Possession of More recent data. At year end Japan found herself with a balance of payments problem. Her imports in 1960 were higher than her exports by millions. Since then the position has become worse. According to the weekly re View of the Bank of Tokyo Japan had an Over All Adverse balance of millions in january millions of it on Trade account. The import Export deficit in february was millions. While the foreign Exchange position is still Good such a trend is bound to threaten the three year Trade liberalization program which the japanese have launched in accordance with their Gatt obligations. We do not live As do the japanese on the razor s Edge we suffer neither from a paucity of natural re sources nor from pressure of population. But or. Fleming and or. Hees have lived with this problem of a Trade deficit and they have seen a greater threat on the horizon in the possible loss of Trade preferences As Britain moves closer to the common Market. The japanese have prob ably interest the reaction of the two minis ters to these developments. Or. Hees goes about the country exhorting Canadian producers to get Down their costs to become competitive to fight for Export markets. When the japanese do the same thing or. Fleming lectures them about orderly marketing and forces them to impose quotas on their own exporters. Meanwhile he restricts Trade by various other devices including the recent class or kind amendment which will enable his colleague or. Nowlan to impose All sorts of dumping duties. He also addresses veiled threats of retaliation to West european countries. The japanese Pride themselves on being a thoroughly westernized country. Why then is it inconceivable As or. Fleming appears to believe that they will react to their problems in a Western Way is there now perhaps a japanese or. Fleming waiting in the wings it is Only within recent years that the japanese have acquired a taste for wheat. If they Are to be forced by our Trade restrictions and their balance of payments difficulties to Cut Back on imports it would seem altogether Likely that our wheat purchases would be the first to suffer. After All Rice is cheaper than wheat and As noted in foreign Trade there is the problem of rising Hying costs leading to japanese Industrial unrest. No doubt the japanese Mission found occasion to men Tion these things in the Ottawa talks. It is to be hoped for the Sake of Western agriculture that their words made some Impact on or. Fleming and or. Hees. Public defender the provincial government has again been asked by an officer of the Manitoba Law society introduce a Public defender system in Manitoba. The government should certainly give sympathetic consideration to the request for it is becoming apparent that the present system of giving Iree Legal Aid to indigent Pri is inadequate. To say that is in no Way to belittle the efforts of the Law society. Its members , since 1959, performed an in valuable service to accused persons in financial need. Thanks to a Pool of lawyers who have volunteered their services for such cases no accused person has had to go without Legal advice. If an accused person requests Legal counsel but is unable to pay for it the Law society appoints a lawyer to represent him. The difficulty is that the dumber of requests for Legal Aid from indigent persons is steadily growing. The Volun Teer lawyers All. Of whom have practices of their own cannot keep up with the num Ber of requests. The result is that an accused person is sometimes forced to remain in custody for a Long time be fore getting representation and a hearing. In effect this situation creates a dual system of jus Tice a Quick hearing for people with Money delay for those without Money. That in a democratic society which believes in equal rights for everyone is unconscionable. This principle that Money or the Lack of it must play no part in the dispensation of appointment of a citizen s de the provincial cof party Las Long favored the appoint ment of a Public defender Anc Many prominent persons and organizations have added their voices to the request. It is time that the provincial gov eminent looked into the mat Ter. Was recognized in Resolution adopted at the f recent Liberal convention. The Resolution called for the creation of an appellate Tri Bunal to which any person veep does not secure Justice from an administrative Board tribunal May apply for re a part of the machinery of such a tribunal the co ordination metropolitan Winnipeg on monday became the first Urban Centre on the North american to _ bring All its transportation and traffic problems together under of Central authority. Flow of trial Fie maintenance Tion of arterial streets construction of Bridges Stree signs and parking regulations will All in future be directed from one Central office metro s streets and transit department. Perhaps the most import ant aspect of this Giganti gathering together of traffic problems is that uniformity o traffic regulations is now Poss Ible. In the past these Reg lations were written by 1 different local governments acting independently. The re sult was the Well known con fusion which baffled the to Orist and often caused him unwittingly the Law under monday s take Over b metro even control of Park ing meters although Revenue from the meters will continue to go to the local municipal ties will be uniformly administered Over the whole Metr area. Inevitably the problem that will attend this ambitious new concept of traffic Contro will be Large. Many people notably some municipal off vials Are convinced that it can not work. However the coordinated plan of metropolitan traffic control was evolve from Long and painstaking study. Given co operation an support by the area munic travelling pub lie there is no reason Why Resolution recommended the should not work. Reform in the House of lords the big Benn explosion the present High comedy of House of lords Reform must be very difficult for people outside Britain to understand. Britons themselves Are constantly hav. No to rub their eyes it is of absurd that Britai als second House of parliament Wheeli is theoretically Able to delay legislation passed by com Mons for up to two years hould be one. In which and can sit by right of birth but in fact this absurdly imposed House has in re ent years hot tried to delay legislation which it does not Ike even in the Days of the ast labor government it at owed nationalization Mea sures to pass through unchallenged. The reason is that it knows that if it did thwart the will of the House of com Mons everybody would agree hat the absurd principle of a hereditary House should be swept away if the House became less absurdly composed for example if. Hereditary English ears did not have an Automa in right to sit in it but membership of the Houie served for eminent men who were nominated As life Peers because of then services in his it is prob Able that the. House would gradually tend to exercise its Powers of delay More often particularly since eminent Nen who Are nominated to by n. A. D. M. Any Post for life More often age on the death of his father become rigidly conservative than ardently socialist in the Days of a labor government. This is Why some conserva Tives in recent years have tended to be reasonably keen on of the composition of the lords on letting More life Peers in and keeping Stime of the hereditary Peers is also Why labor has viewed any such apparently More democratic reforms with great suspicion. This has had paradoxical re sults. When the conservatives passed a minor Reform Bill three years age to create life Peers there Are now about and to keep out of the. House certain hereditary Peers who for Long periods never make an appearance there labor did not support this legislation. The latest trouble Over House of lords Reform How Ever did not originally Start front conservative efforts t o put More life Peers into the House but from the Reluct Ance of. A Young labor my. To go there. Two months ago or. An Thony Wedgwood Benn the Young Lively and rather left Wing labor my for South East succeeded to a peer the first lord Sta isgate who himself had been a one time labor my but had been Elev ated to the peerage of stans or. Attlee wanted to have More labor representatives in the House of or. Benh thereby be came ineligible to be any longer a member of the House of which by Law Only lunatics Church of Parsons and convicted felons May not sit. But while these four diverse groups not sit As Meri Ibers of the House of com Mons they can under absurd British Law offer them selves As candidates for it. In fact at successive general elections the bomb throwing Irish Republican army put up convicted gunmen who at the time were still in prison As its candidates for seats in Northern Ireland in 1955 two of them were elected but were then not allowed to sit the seats were declared to have been won by the top Law Ful candidates in their constituencies in each Case conservative candidates who Cariie second. Or. Benn has now. Copied the Irish. He has gone Back to his old seat at South East Bris Tol arid put up As labor candidate there for the by election due to be held on May 4. It has become fairly obvious hat he is going to win it the conservative dominated Louse of commons will then have to declare that he cannot sit and award his seat instead of his Defeated conservative opponent who will thus be re turned to the House by a Mas Sive minority. This will make the tories ook very unfair. So last week he cunning Home Secretary a. R. A. Butler announced that the government proposes to set. Up a committee of Iri embers of both houses to consider three questions 1 should be feet dragging the Federal department of. Made and Commerce is be ported to be disappointed at he Lack of enthusiasm Eye Dent among Canadian Busi Ness firms in expanding their Export Trade. Last year at a conference of overseas Trade commissioners More than 100 firms expressed a desire to expand their sales into overseas markets. But Many firms have failed to follow through to the Embarrass ment of the Trade commission ers who have been trying to Remote overseas Deal s. Some ifs have failed to Send samples Price lists and Cata Ogues As., they promised in others have been very slow in answering Cor Respondence still others have reply to letters from respective sales agents abroad. All companies course Sun there is something rather touching about the recent re quest of the indians of the Pound maker reservation in Saskatchewan to the Federal government. A Brief presented on their behalf by Solomon Blue Horn to the joint Centary committee on Indian affairs asked the government for financial help in staging the traditional. Indian religious ceremonies. The Brief argued that the White religious representatives can raise Money to stage their religious ceremonies. But the indians on the reservation cannot do this when they want to have their Sun dances and Chicken dances. Therefore the indians feel some Federal help should be forthcoming. The indians May have a Case. It May be argued that in the past they have managed to put on their religious dances without financial assistance. But things were Dif Ferent in those Days. The com ing of the White Man has made great and not always favourable changes in the indians Way of and it seems reasonable to expect some adjustments made. If the old dances were to die because1 of Lack of Money to hold and surely this must be a very modest amount Canada would be poorer for it. The Indian affairs give the most sympathetic consideration to Solomon Blue Horn s request. Same Brush. Nearly 350 new foreign sales agencies or buy no connections have been established As. Al result of the december but the reluctance of Many firms to get out and promote overseas sales seems to confirm the criticism made last year by the Canadian Trade commissioner in London who com cannot of be tarred with the planned Ference of to casual India Export markets by Many Canadian companies. There ate. Reports that in the forthcoming budget or. Fleming May include some form encourage Canadian firms to compete More vigorously in the Export Market. This is a sound suggestion which has worked i other countries notably West Germany. But it May now be questioned be cause i of the feet dragging of scr Many Canadian firms if tax incentives will have the desired result. That is not to say that they should not be tried but it seems Clear that Many Canadian manufacturers Are quite Content to carry on As they., now Are operating costly in a protected Market behind Tariff Walls and not troubled greatly by Competition. To make a Mark in the stiffly competitive overseas Market would require a change in attitude and in the operations of such firms. They would have to meet Tough Competition in Quality Price and sales promotion. Many firms apparently Are not ready to face this and pre Fer to Putter along As they Are. If the government should introduce tax incentives to stimulate Export sales and it becomes Clear that they Are not having the desired effect then it should take a look at its Tariff policies. A Little More Competition for domes tic firms from imported goods at Home might make Canad an companies Iribe competitive abroad. They would be forced to compete vigorously in order to survive at All at the flood when he announced his policy of creating an Atlantic Community of abundant Trade or. Macmillan no doubt had in mind the latest reports from the common Market of Europe. After their surge of economic growth last year the six Continental nations might reasonably have expected their Pace to slow Down somewhat this year. Instead the record for the first Quarter of 1961 shows continued expansion on the former scale. It is no wonder that Britain intends to link its Economy with the most prosperous area in the world and if possible to extend the common mar Ket s principles across the Atlantic. A recent development ii Europe indicates the extra Ordinary Success of its steady Tariff reductions and rising Commerce. France historically the most protectionist nation of the six has removed the remaining import restrictions which were imposed during its financial crisis a few years ago. The deliberate purpose of this decision says an official statement is to expose French Industry to the benefits of greater having entered the com Mon Market with some misgivings the French govern ment has no reason to regret its policy every reason to broaden it. Moreover the reliable remedy of Trade has Given eur Ope such health and vitality that Britain s sceptical judg ment of this Experiment has been completely reversed. So has the judgment of the United states. It is not generally known because the american View was never publicly expressed the Eisenhower administration did nothing to encourage the amalgamation of the two european trading blocs. In fact its tacit objection to their Union was regarded in Britain and on the continent As an almost fatal obstacle. Taking a very Short View the american government feared that a United eur Opean Economy might discriminate against the United states and damage its interests. The Kennedy administration has rejected this negative position. In the words of vice president Lyndon Johnson no single nation has enough influence and Power to maintain this spacious. Environment of Freedom. The coalition of the Peoples and nations of Western eur Ope and North America is indispensable to this end. With out their Power it cannot be it is highly significant that or. Macmillan had conferred at length with president Kennedy in Washington before he went to the Massachusetts Institute of tech . Oi1vuju if allowed to renounce their tit to declare that we ought to try to work for the i _ Lafertc t1 of Fra of sat stove Frt Les and sit in the commons if hey want to any legislation o this effect will come too ate to validate or. Benn at Bristol but the tories can at East pretend that they Are be no very fair in trying to avoid similar anomalies in future 2 whether some Peers should be paid for full time attendance. In the House of lords probably the full time Peers would be shared equally Between the government and the opposition and thus meet or. Gaitskell s objection that most labor stalwarts cannot afford to be elevated to serve in the unpaid House of 3 possible changes in the composition of the House of lords which Means keeping More hereditary Peers out and letting More newly appointed life Peers largest area of free Trade that we can and then to warn the free world that Europe s present division is a grave danger to our military coherence and a canker gnawing at the very Core of the Western Al the altered views of the British and american governments Are in full Harmony. They have realized that Europe s trading system at first a dubious venture As outsiders saw it is now an. Unexampled achievement. And that lesson has been re enforced by the opposite experience of the United states of Britain and especially of Canada while Europe was reaching its highest Peak of Prosperity the United states and Canada were both suf Fering from a business recession and Britain though still prosperous was encountering again its old enemy a bal Ance of payments squeeze. The contrast Between conditions inside and outside the european common Market is so vivid that it can no longer be denied even by those who still favor the Boot strap theory of Trade restriction and self containment. In the Light of recent events the new spirit abroad in the world As or. Macmillan Calls it the timorous attitude of the Canadian government or. Flem ing s fear of european integration his threats of retaliation his Back door restrictions on Trade All appear now As a futile attempt to reverse the tide which should be taken at the flood. But this last Reform which would make the lords look a More sensible body is precis Ely the one Point or. Gaits Kell cannot afford to agree to unless he says the., formal Powers of the lords Are fur ther curtailed. To the general Public this labor reaction looks rather churlish after l says the Man in the Street the government is offering to make the House of lords More democratic and it seems unreasonable to say that the new House should have even less Powers than the existing and less democratic one. Thus or. Butler thinks that it is the tories who Are going after All to lose least from the eventual repercussions of the big Benn explosion and for the time being it is the tories who Are laughing loudest about the lords she Mozzle. But nobody can yet Tell who will be laughing last. I should be remembered to begin with that a column of this sort has no substance of its own it is a Mirror Mage merely. For its breath of life or inspiration if that s the right word it must de Jend entirely on the City s aldermen of whose motions resolutions debates and some Imes sparkling repartee it is More or less a True reflect Ion. Yet in fairness to the Alder men it has to be admitted that the shallow surface of a Mir ror is incapable at times of doing Justice to the jiving breathing drama it reflects. Today s scripture Jesus said unto them a pro Phet is not without Honor but in his own country and among his own Kin and in his own Bouse. Mark birthdays Peter Hiebert Nive raffle Man. Born Niverville May 2, 1881. Anyhow Tetra i a definite disarmament Cap monday night club by c. S. R. Council involves the hearing of reports from its committees. These reports consist of Indi it can reproduce with reason Able accuracy the actions of an Alderman who leaps out of Lis chair As did Alderman e. Anderson on monday night and seizes his Lapel with his left hand while with his right he Points at an offend ing paragraph on the Agenda paper having cast a statesmanlike imperious glance around the chamber at the upturned faces of his col leagues demands to know your worship on what Prin Ciple of equity this Council has seen sit to subsidize the International Flower show of Winnipeg with a Grant. The Shadow of an Aldermani action is sometimes hardly less substantial than the sub stance. But action is deceptive and the Mirror has its limitations a White Robed figure let us say is kneeling by an altar motionless and seemingly in tent upon its Orisons. The re Flection is quite accurate it reveals the passive worshipper. But the drama is in arid so beyond the Mirror s reach. A Man makes no theatrical and superficial gestures in the silent formal ritual of committing Hari Fri. A formal meeting of the City assistant clerk moved by the committee chairman and then debated freely or accepted without comment by the Alder men. On monday night with out exception they were accepted without comment Transfer of All mechanical and Osiier equipment of the ormer assessment department of the metropolitan Corpora intoned the clerk. Your committee has considered this matter and recommends that he request be. in asked mayor Juba. visual Ivsich items or motions Are read aloud by an furniture and equipment of the traffic Branch to be transferred to the metropolitan in agreement with the metro Politan corporation relating to re lating to traffic names of certain employees transferred to the metro Politan corporation sche Dule in of in less than 15 minutes the formal portion of the meeting was completed and except for Odds and ends of questions like Alderman e. Andersons the meeting was All Over. The seated figures. Behind the Al germanic desks had hardly moved. But sometimes a scene in which the figures do not move is More dramatic than it action has already taken place and the consequences will be what they will be ;