Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - July 16, 1968, Winnipeg, Manitoba Printed and published Dally sunday by Winnipeg free press. Company limited 300 Carlton Street Winnipeg Manitoba. John Sifton r. S. Malone. Publisher and editor in chief. Peter Mclintock executive editor Maurice Western Ottawa editor i Winnipeg free press Winnipeg tuesday july 16, 1968 Freedom of Trade Liberty of religion Equality of civil rights Seaway settlement the . Lawrence Seaway strike settlement seems to b fairly satisfactory All round., the workers did not get a much As they sought the Seaway authority gave a Little More than it initially offered and the Federal government kept itself out of the dispute As. The. Prime minister had Sai it would. T the Union had originally sought a 20 per cent increase in wages for one year. This was reduced to ten per cent be year for a two year Cost cacti later this came Down. To 1 per cent Over a two year period or a yearly average increase of percent. The authority stuck by the 12 per Cen increase Over two years six per cent per year As recommended by a conciliation later indicated it Mig h be prepared to go to 13 per cent. In the settlement the workers get a raise of 7 per Cen in 1968, per cent in 1969 and 5% per cent in 1970. They gain also because the new settlement is retroactive to nov 1, 1967 two months before the old settlement ran out this Means an additional 375 to each worker. They gain in addition by More fringe benefits covering statutory holi Days with pay length of service required for holidays Shif differentials Etc. Management gains in that the. Contract is for three years not two which promises a longer period of Relief from wage negotiations and disputes than otherwise would have been the Case. The Federal government gains because in this its first test in the area of labor relations it did not interfere directly but allowed the two parties to work out a settlement by themselves. The nation gains because after Days the Seaway is again open ships and cargoes Are moving and the threat to the Economy posed by a prolonged shutdown has been removed. Showing the Flag in february 1948, while Czechoslovakia prepared for general elections the soviet government demanded the right to Send Large contingents of the red army across czechoslovak territory. These red army forces were in fact stand ing by on czechoslovak soil to intervene should the planned communist coup go awry. What happened after the coup to the czechs and slovaks who were either opposed to stalinist communism or merely belonged to social classes the communists had decided to liquidate is now being told in gruesome detail in the newly free czech press. Something very similar is taking place at present. Soviet forces Are lingering on czechoslovak soil contradictory reports about their intentions Are following each other in nerve wracking sequence while elections Are in Progress for the extraordinary communist party Congress that is to eliminate hard line stalinist from the upper reaches of the party. It is remarkable How the soviet Union always ready with accusations of colonialism Neo colonialism and imperialism is reluctant to let go of her satellites. The czechs and slovaks Are Well aware that under present conditions it would be impossible to upset the balance of Power in Europe. They know they cannot leave the Warsaw pact and they Are Well aware that because of Czechoslovakia history and geographical position the soviet Alliance is essential to her Security. However As a czech communist paper recently put it they want to be masters in their own this is something the russians cannot understand. And yet they have had the example of Finland a Good and reliable neighbor even though the finns have safeguarded their full Freedom. Today the Moscow hardliners May feel More secure should they decide to intervene in Prague than they prob ably did in 1956 when they marched into Budapest. The postwar feeling of remorse toward Small nations has now largely vanished. The United states has its eyes on Asia and it is the liberals rather than the conservatives As in the Between wars period who advocate isolationism. Senator Eugene Mccarthy foreign policy program would not have shamed the late of the Chicago Tribune. Last year nobody lifted a Finger to save Israel from threatened annihilation and it was left to the israelis to save their skins by their own efforts. But and slovaks Are not dealing with As in the 1930s, their antagonist is a super Power. Thirty years ago proclaimed the protectorate of Bohemia and a strictly colonial term. A generation later Moscow seems ready to behave in the Centre of Europe in a manner not unlike that exhibited by the old colonial masters in darkest Africa. Antonin Novotny the negro King of the russians was deposed and the soviet forces Are now showing the Flag to get into Power. If the russians believe they can get away with an. Intervention in Prague without causing a major upset in the world they Are mistaken. The remorse of the 1940s May have vanished but the fear that gripped the West in 1948, and the anger of 1956, Are not All spent. The mood that could sweep West Germany and the United states in the Wake of such a soviet intervention could Well show the russians All too late that they have bitten off More than they can Swallow. The Nightmare of a stalemate w7ashington the Glim Prospect of a presiden tial election. ,4n november stymied by the candidacy of Eorge Wallace can no longer 3e dismissed As a bad dream. Or. Wallace has for some months been winning a rating of around 15 per cent in National opinion polls with enough of that concentrated in he South to assure him a number of electoral votes from that the demo Ratic Republican electoral is close he could prevent Ither major candidate from winning the required Overall majority of the 53s-vote elec Oral College. A typical indicator was the recent Survey by the Christian science Monitor of its Cor respondents m the 50 states which showed that even the most powerful teams of presi entail and vice presidential candidates which could be yielded by the two major arties appeared Short of Victory with or. Wallace american Independent party 11 the race. And or. Wallace As Only just begun to take is Campaign into the North there it could pick up considerable steam if race related Breaks out to any extent this summer. Several cities were on the Edge last Veek if the worst happens on november 5, and no president elected the Constitution provisions require that the country be thrown into Politi Al limbo for at least two months. This might riot have Een too serious when that by Richard Purser because of the obsolete provisions of the . Constitution there May either be no presi Dent elected for months or else or. Wallace could hold the country to Ransom. Document was drafted but today the period of indecision will have natives friends and foes alike biting their nails with Only the personal Force of the outgoing president to hold Down the tensions. The state delegations of the electoral College will their respective state capitals on december 16 no Speed up is possible the Law fixes that they will cast then votes for president and. Vice president on separate lists and Send them sealed. By registered mail to the presi Dent of the Senate who is also the v i c e a r. E i d e n t of the United states Hubert Humphrey. On next january .6 again fixed by Law the new House of representatives As elected on november 5, and the Senate with its newly elected members will meet jointly. In their presence or. Humphrey will open the envelopes and the electoral votes of the states will be counted and announced in alphabetical order. Harry p. Shewman checking converts the Manitoba government is planning to set up a voluntary automobile inspection service. The service will enable a Driver to find for an As yet unspecified fee what if anything is wrong with his car. If serious defects Are found the Driver will have to have them fixed. For Many years safety agencies Law enforcement bodies and other responsible citizens have been urging the establishment of a motor vehicle inspection system to. Reduce the number of. Mechanically unsafe cars on the Road and reduce the number of accidents injuries unfortunately the government plan is not Likely to accomplish this. The reason simply is that the plan is not compulsory. Most people Don t like compulsion and in most Circum stances there should be As Little of it As possible. But there Are some cases in which trip Public Good must take precedence Over individual wishes. This is one of them. It is the. Most elementary logic that a voluntary inspection system and wont work the inspection stations will not attract the relevant people and cars. The Driver of a new car or the Driver who prides himself on keeping his car in first class condition the Driver in Short who probably does t need to have his car inspected will probably Volunteer. But the Driver who owns a rattle rap that he knows will Cost a Good Deal of Money to repair will inspection station like the plague. In these circumstances the services of an inspection Sta Tion will be redundant for it will be catering to Vertex the sinners will re main at Large. If the inspection to perform any meaningful function it must be made compulsory. On a voluntary basis it will be an exercise in futility. The death on saturday of. Arry Shewman the Conser Active member for Morris moves from the Manitoba legislature one of the last of the distinctive and highly colourful Breed of politicians which greatly enlivened Mani Toba politics in Days past. Newer members of the parity at Home prime minister Trudeau underlined some Home truths last weekend when he re marked on the Folly of Canadian w o r k or seeking wage parity with workers in the United states. As Long As the Canadian Standard of and. Productivity Are lower than the american he pointed out wage parity can Only Lead to higher taxation and inflation. But this he said is not the Only evil of wage parity under present circumstances. Where the workers in one or two industries achieve wage parity with the ., As is now the Case this can be achieved Only at a Cost to other workers who have to pay higher prices for their products. The prime minister is not against wage panty in Prin Ciple. He believes that there is a Case for parity but on another basis not by seeking parity with the ., but on the sensible Assumption that parity begins at today scripture whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these Little ones a cup of _ cold water Only in the name of a disciple verily i say unto you he shall in no Wise lose his Reward. Matthew legislature who knew or. Shewman Only after ill health had begun to subdue both his vitriol and his laughter will remember a quiet Man. But older members will Rem Ember Long and nostalgically the Days when the circular chamber re echoed to the mighty sounds of men like or. Shewman Douglas Campbell j a c k Mcdowell Bunny no holds Wally Miller and Hutton locked in barred oratorical Competition or. Shewman in his nearly 20 years in the legislature taught his fellow Las much about the value of maintain ing a sense of fun and a sense of the essential Absurdity of things even in. The most tense of situations. He also set an example of Public service he held elective office As trustee As mayor As la continuously since 1925 that demands for him a place of distinction in the political annals of this province. Let try More girl and less costume and see if that counteracts Degaulle but he will be unable to follow with the usual Declara Tion of the new president and vice president and for the first time since 1824, Congress will choose the nation Lead ers. The Senate on a straight vote will choose the new vide president from among the two top electoral vote contenders for that office. Arid the House will choose the president. This is where the fun starts if it can be called that. The vote will not be held in the Normal manner of House votes but rather each state delegation will have one vote with a full majority of 26 out of the 5.0 votes required to name a president consider the prospects for the purpose of naming a president Alaska with about a. Quarter of a million people will be. Equal to new York with there is More each state delegation decided its vote by simple majority casting no vote at All if there is a tie. And no state vote need have any relationship to that state popular vote for the presi Dency. Each state delegation May vote As it likes among the top three contenders. And to farther complicate matters the new. House will probably be politically to the right of the present one. It May even be Republican controlled. This raises another interesting Prospect the Senate with Only one third of its member ship up for re election is bound to remain democratic and to elect a democratic vice president who May then find himself teamed up with a Republican president. The possibilities Are endless that constructing scenarios for the presidential selection is fast becoming one of the games people Washington. J o u r n a 1 i t i c humorist Russell Baker Par eyed the game into a not Tongue in Cheek Book which held out the Prospect of a prolonged stalemate in the House. One such presidential election in the House held in 1800 finder a somewhat Dif Ferent constitutional situation ran for 36 ballots if by january 20 when the new president is supposed to take office there is still no president the new vice president becomes acting president until the House makes up its mind. As or. Baker suggested although his own Clever Structure on the continued presence of president Johnson and the late senator Robert f. Ken Nedy in the the longer the House is stalemated the More entrenched an acting president Call become. None of. These scenarios happens to be favored by or. Wallace. He wants the whole Issue to be settled in the december 18 voting by the electoral College. His scheme is to Trade off the votes committed to himself in favor of whichever other candidate is willing to enter into what he Calls a solemn covenant with the people. The favored candidate will Promise As president to re peal Laws affecting the apportionment and distribution of votes within the states to remove the Federal Bureau Cracy from the. States to assure control of internal affairs by the states and to refrain from enforcing or abetting equal rights for negroes. It is almost numbing to hear or. Wallace spout his program As nonchalantly As he does. What responsible candidate of a major party could possibly agree to sell out the future of the Leader of the free world to appease or Wallace urge for a return to darkness but just such a Challenge May have to be faced. Take courage it May never happen. Yet it would be Wise to be prepared for the Day when George Wallace holds the United states at Ransom. Second of two articles France needs a new party by Tim Traynor Beauvais France the crisis of May Brough France workers to the Brinl of but when the looked across the chasm Many evidently did t like what they saw. By the yer act of recoiling from the consequences of their actions they committed themselves in an entirely new sense to French society As it is. This commitment May not last by for the moment it is. A mos potent reality. A Strong element in the current dialect Cal climate is the Public grasp of the economic Anc political facts of life in a modern Industrial democracy the consequences could be profound. More than mos Western european countries France is in the process o Radical change. Its traditional peasant Economy is giving Way to capitalist industrialization and its political syst err has been evolving away from Multi party fragmentation to Ward the Model of Large conflicting blocs. In his own Way general de Gaulle has been moulding France into a new nation on the Basic pattern of the Anglo Saxon Liberal democracies. It has been his Folly to Deaden through autocratic methods the vital nerve systems theoretically connecting the voter with the wielders of Power Al the head of the. Governing parliamentary bloc. It needed a massive Public attend it to change the regime within the existing framework to bring Home to the elector ate the political anomalies of the gaullist autocracy that prevented the realization of he Liberal democratic Ideal. The prescription has largely been filled by the events of recent weeks and there is at least a Chance that the logical conclusion will be drawn. The fundamental anomaly ies in the fact that the main opposition party depends on a roup whose commitment to he Liberal democratic Ideal is of say the least in doubt. This Fly in the ointment is of course the communist party which has had the steady support of up to a fifth of the French electorate. The socialist parties entered into an electoral Alliance with the communists because they despaired of overcoming by themselves the gaullist major to. The socialist communist bloc almost succeeded in win Ning the parliamentary elec ions last year but there was always a danger that the Al dance would become counter productive through a reaction against the possibility of communist participation in the government. This was one of Gen. De Raulle strongest cards and the closer the left Wing Alli Ance came to Power the stronger became. The card. It Clear that there were some who would vote for the Eft As a protest but who would Retreat if they believed he socialists were within reach of Power. The crisis has thrown All his into Stark Relief. The leftist leaders found them elves lifted on a tide that activated All the latent doubts bout the left. The leftist readers gave vent to demands or Gen. De Gaulle outright departure Only for the briefest if no amount of constructive constitutionalism Alk thereafter could repair he damage. The gaullist had Field Day with talk of an attempted red Putsch and France tragedy lies in the present Constellation of political parties. The country needs a Radical party that would Combine the non communist left with the progressive Cen tre. Never looked Back once the Campaign got underway the moral could not be clearer. This Side of revolution the workers can Only assert themselves politically through a left Wing grouping that can compete with the right for votes in the political Centre. This Means above All a party which does not depend on the communists. It also Means a party which recognizes that the existing economic system must not be tampered with to the Point of jeopardizing the Prosperity of recent years advantageous grouping to project an image of technocratic competence and modernity in the Ameri can sense in Short an image in Many ways similar to that which the anarchists of the sorbonne find abhorrent. It would be for such a an attempt to establish such a grouping was made several years ago with limited Success but the possibilities greater now. Had there been More time before the election there would have been a Clear opening for a Strong Centre left initiative. Many in the Centre have manifestly voted gaullist with extreme reluctance realizing that the country would be much better served by a regime which had the Confidence of the workers and would concentrate its energies on much needed social re forms. A restaurant owner in this provincial town summed it up the British Don t know How Lucky they Are to have a labor in the absence of such a party the have no Choice but to pursue their Aims through the strengthened gaullist regime. Much will depend on whether and How the reforms already promised by Gen. De Gaulle Are carried through. But the extent of the gaullist gains is hardly propitious. The result of the general ostentatious bid for the support of Liis right whig enemies from the Days of the algerian War has increased the hostility of the left and will make relations Between the government and the work ers even colder than they Are at the moment. There is no guarantee against a repetition of the spasm of May but the prospects need not be too grim if Here is. In fact a reformation on the left. The big question Low is will some new Man or men Rise to the occasion second of two articles remembered words from Lang syne when life was Bonnie by Alexander Anderson Lang syne when life was Bommie a a the skies were Blue. When Ilka the pct took Blos som an Hung its Heid i Dew when Winter Wasna Winter though saws Cam Hap Iii Doon Lang syne when life was Bonnie Spring aged a Twa month Roun. Happier looking Bank brass i t Ondon the top brass at the Bank of England is much happier this week. Quite a lot of the recent financial scare stories coming out of Condon have stemmed from he fact that everybody with an ear to the ground in Lon Don knew that right up to the first weekend in july the Bank of England was clearly very nervous about something. Most people had assumed hat this meant the Bank feared that the Indi Cator pointed in a gloomier direction than Harold Wilson government was letting on. It now Plain that the main weight of the Bank worry was a threat largely unconnected with the internal state of the British Economy. Some of the countries of the overseas Sterling area broadly speaking the Commonwealth minus Canada Lus some Middle East coun nes and a few others had served notice that they wished o move into other currencies including Gold and dollars some of the reserves they ave hitherto held in Sterling. The total switch especially from some of the Middle East by n. A. D. Macrae sheikh Doms and places like Singapore could have been Large. In the three years prior to november _ 1967 when it seemed obvious that an event Ual Sterling devaluation against the Dollar was inevitable it always surprised me that these funds were still kept in Sterling. The countries concerned were induced to keep their Money in London by a Odd mixture of appeals not to Rock the boat pointed reminders about How important Trade with and private investment from Britain was to most of them and the lure of artificially high1 interest rates. Since the devaluation of last occur however i would have thought that movements from these funds into dollars now would be a Case of Locking the stable door after the horse has bolted. But apparently that is How minds in the overseas Sterling area worked. If there had been a Large and unilateral withdrawal of these balances it could have caused a second devaluation of Sterling. The thinks it has now scotched this danger. It has arranged that switches out of these reserves up to a total of billion in the period 1968-73 will not hit Sterling because Britain will be Able to draw on a medium term stand by credit however it will have to repay in the period 1e73-7s. R this is a fairly expensive policy against a Burden which be cause the balances have hitherto stayed in Sterling Britain Lias not previously had to Bear. It therefore seems a bit Odd to regard it As a great strengthening of the British Economy. But the authorities in Britain Are quite clearly cock a hoop about it and Wor being ried brows Are now mopped in Relief. Sterling prospects should now depend mostly on Britain own economic performance. Many of. The government ministers and advisers Are with reason genuinely optimistic about this. Exports Are now competitive and rising. With the drop in internal spending since Roy Jenkins budget in March now quite Sharp even though it is a drop from a grossly inflated the authorities say imports should also come Down from their recent uncomfortably High level. In june Britain visible Trade Gap. Did in fact fall to million compared with the horrendous million in the previous two months. But on the. Assumption that Britain usual sur plus on invisible that is insurance receipts Etc May just about cancel out its usual deficit on capital account that million a month visible Trade deficit still needs to come Down to nothing for Britain payments to. Be in balance ;