Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - August 25, 1969, Winnipeg, Manitoba And pus Imick a ii v jct company a push Rhor Niji ten a in Ptter Mcl mock executive de. Lor r h. Shelford general manager Winnipeg free press Winnipeg monday August 25, 1969 guaranteed incomes so far prime minister Trudeau has suggested Only two possible economies in his determination to arrest the dizzy spiral of his government s spending. The civil service and i Federal Public works might be Cut he says. But undoubtedly. In his present pause for reflection he is considering much More drastic measures including an overhaul of rhe nation s whole welfare system. On these problems he does not Lark advice from provincial governments municipalities professors labor unions and the Man on the Street. Among them an omnibus solution is gaining Broad support Guaran teed annual income for All canadians. This plan in various forms has. The Appeal of Simplici in. Instead of numerous welfare services Federal Provin-1 Cial and municipal with overlapping of Effort and expense every household would receive enough Money from the state to keep it abreast of the poverty which the economic Council defines As a year for a family of three persons. Thus it is argued Large savings would be effected in administration costs As computers in Ottawa i sent out the necessary cheques to qualified recipients. Canada now provides a guaranteed income of sorts differing among the provinces. In the last fiscal year the three Levels of government spent billion or More than ten per cent of the Gross National product on welfare payments. No family is denied the Bare necessities of though the economic Council estimates that 27 per cent of j the non farm population lives in poverty a shocking j figure in this Rich country. J the guaranteed income would not be a change in Basic principle but it might Well be a Large change in Cost. No one knows How much Money is involved since that would depend on the amount of the guarantee and also on the current state of the Economy As it fluctuates in employment and hence in the numbers of the poor. I of Liberty of religion of civil rights eco suffers a body blow by Gavin cordon a mussels it certainly i knocked a chunk out of the european common Mark i l foundations when i Rance devalued the franc. The immediate upset was in the Day to Day working of Trio agriculture policy inn ii is still not possible to assess the damage j in the rest of the Structure. J i the farm problem took precedence because this is the Only activity which is com j plemely european Zed. The eco Heads were proud indeed that they had successfully got uniform prices covering the whole six countries the same i Market support the same i fund for Export subsidies and a protected Home Market of million people where Farmers can sell at Good the devaluation of the French franc has unset the delicate mechanism that year was to bring the common Market within reach of its final goal. Vales once which the commis Sion had proposed should be two years. It was tile dutch who doggedly fighting through the Long night succeeded by 5 . In securing some limitations. The scheme will now have to be voted afresh by the ministers when it has been working for three months and after a year there will be a product by product Survey to decide whether and what continued help is needed. A am i am seeking your vote for Good honest government and i will my you half truths Bunkum and outright Libs to get it moreover no estimate of Cost made today would necessarily be valid tomorrow if the poverty line keeps rising with prices while inflation As always hits hardest at the poor. Already the estimated costs of medicare to take the most obvious example Are out of Date. It is certain too As in the Case of old age pensions that electoral candidates will propose a higher guaranteed income at every election to win votes regardless of the nation s current Means. All such schemes Are built on a political escalator. Nevertheless the guaranteed income finds Strong advocates. Premier Bennett of British Columbia assuredly no Radical has urged it on the Federal government and if he is re elected this month will renew his Campaign probably i action to curb it profiting by inflation Ottawa in discussions about inflation very Little attention is paid to one of its important consequences the emergence of groups in the Community with a Strong apparent interest in continuing inflation. No one publicly admits to any such interest. In Public to by Maurice Western prices Many people think too i it is almost an irony that at Good under the guarantee of the end of 19g9, the common the support machinery. Market is to pass from its the prices of course Are transition phase to its Perm quoted in local currencies but Anent status As a full scale they Are fixed in units of economic Union while there is account equivalent to the still this tight customs Barrier . Dollar. There is the under around its chief agricultural lying Assumption that eco i nation. Before this happens currencies won t change eith ministers have got to finder in their rates of Exchange i some Means of renewing the for one another or against the agricultural finance Regula Dollar. When France devalued Iorli virtually setting the it looked for a moment like a agricultural policy on firmer wonderful Harvest tide present j feel in this world of surpluses for Farmers of around 50 deciding what proportion of francs extra for every ton of i the Cost each nation shall wheat and gifts on the same j Bear rethinking the Price some Union leaders find that they can beat inflation by demanding that the general Public subsidize the disproportionately High wages of organized workers. Self limitations on the part of scale for All their other crops. They had no right to it of course. Producing the crops would not Cost them a franc business. 1 but this plainly is not the Only problem confronting Union leaders if they do not agree to meaningful curbs they will further estrange workers already seriously Hurt by inflation. More and if the produce were forced on the Market at the higher prices up would go the prices of food the Cost of living would Rise the Price and that its continuance would with the encouragement of other provincial leaders. But before or. Trudeau can possibly reach a decision he will wish to know much More about the consequences both financial and social and he could read with profit a study made by or. L. A. Kelly of the Industrial relations Centre at Queen s University. Or. Kelly concludes that a guaranteed income would not solve the problem of poverty nor reduce the present costs of social welfare. In his View such a rigid system taking no account of the varying economic conditions in a disparate country could not satisfactorily replace the existing pro Grams that Are based on regional and individual needs. There is another difficulty. If they on a minimum amount of Money whether they work or not some Able bodied people will not work or. Kelly believes. Or they will take Long holidays Between jobs while the taxpayers support them. This Assumption is denied by Robert Theobald the new York economist and leading advocate of the guaranteed income proposal in the United states. He thinks that poor families would always work even if they did not earn much extra Money because americans in All income classes have an almost pathological desire to perhaps they have at present and their desire is one of the main reasons Why the United states is the richest nation in the world. But once it is established in Law that a Man need not work to live on a fixed though relatively Low Standard will that desire be maintained or will the revolt against work already under Way in some social areas continue to ? of be dangerous it May be j difficult to convince the rank this May be at the expense i and file that for them inflation yet if they Are to commit wage spin Mer the forces currently at work in the Economy Are somehow persuade their own themselves they must Rily and the door be wide open to inflation. The policy against the background of experience and on More controversial ground deciding whether the agriculture fund shall have a Revenue of its own and the european parliament be vested with Ade quate Powers for its control. Of someone else or the action May be general in character for example by the govern ment and not clearly seen to have discriminatory consequences. Ii is probable too that the protestations do rest in part on a Basic uneasiness about what May happen if the end result of the Long economic spree is economic recession. At the crucial moments however it is not this general uneasiness which determines attitudes but the Prospect of immediate benefits to the group concerned. By now for those in Good bargaining positions there is a reassuring experience to encourage bold expectations. Is not a Good thing. The usual reaction of Union leaders is to identify business profits As the villain of the piece. There May in fact be a concert of interests Here. In some cases businessmen Al though As ready As Union leaders to use inflation As a convenient excuse May be Happy enough to live with it on the basis of their own experience up to now. Others May see in rising prices if they have not already seen it the handwriting on the Wall. Differentiating one group of i people that it is time to Call a halt to a process which has workers from another. A continuation of this pro ill the past two years the Cess May Well create a serious consumer Price Index has j dilemma for the stronger taken leaps of four and 5.2 per i unions. For their movement cent. The real income of most i although primarily concerned again or. Kely insists that the need for state assist Ance is not concentrated in the groups of unfortunate people who for physical or other reasons cannot work since they Are covered by the existing welfare system. The worst problem is the worker who has a Job but earns less than he would receive if he were on welfare. Ontario alone or. Kelly estimates has some families in this category. If we Are going to Deal realistically with this he says it would seem that it has to be done by giving some kind of people has not kept Pace. Many including those on fixed incomes pensioners and employees whose gains have failed to match the increases in living costs have dropped Back. Whatever the poverty line May be it has reached up j to embrace More people. But the fact is that some have done very Well out of with the wages and working conditions of members has always professed a More general interest in the welfare of working people. The emphasis has always been on labor Solidarity in deed at one time it used to be i argued that there was an inflation. A Federal labor study by the department of 616 major collective agree ments covering 1.27 million workers roughly a sixth of the labor Force shows that the average base rate Rose by 7.7 per cent in the year ending june 30, 1969. Experience in the previous supplement to earnings so that working families Are j Var was similar for Oach the assured an income at least As High As they would receive if j department calculates that the they were unable to if that Assurance is Given by a guaranteed income Why increase in real terms was 2.3 per cent. In Europe where patterns brought substantial gains to of marxist thought Are More j Strong unions prevalent it would doubtless i this will not be easy for be said that we Are witnessing the main thrust of Union pro the emergence of a new class j Pagan a has not been directed a privileged labor group in against inflation which has society. Sometimes been discounted or moreover there is no real i More frequently blamed on answer to this in the broader other groups. Interest of which or. Mac Donald spoke. One expression of that presumably is the escalating Factor built into the National pension plan. Nor has there been As Lor example in Sweden any serious Effort to Deal with the widening Gap Between labor s haves and have not or the movement. Manifestly there is a Good but this limited to two per even Public recognition of its cent has not compensated for existence or its dangers for the much greater increase in living costs. It has manifestly not pre vented an increased differentiation within the labor Force with the comparatively Well to do getting Richer and the less Well off sinking More deeply into the poverty mire. The prices and incomes commission in exploratory talks with Union spokesmen has already come up against one foreseeable difficulty the argument that voluntary restraints will be acceptable Only if they Are matched by Case to be made including the relevant Point that a serious recession could easily wipe out present gains. But the difficulties facing Union leaders should not be minimized their own utter answer of course was to keep j the French produce prices in French francs As they were but this meant they would be lower by 11 per cent than in any other of the eco coun tries. Obviously the French this would be a difficult task in any Case with the French Economy in its present danger and French agriculture thus corseted it has All the frontiers so laboriously Jook being impossible. This opened had to be closed. Is tile More True Lor the last every ton of produce going out of France has now to be taxed every ton coming in must be subsidized to Bridge the Gap. This applies not Only to the great Cereal crops but to the whole Range of crops and cultures not forgetting the beef the pig the Chicken and the Dairy still less the Long half world of processed pro ducts the Jam the lard the sausage and the Kipper to mention Only a few. Admittedly the customs posts will be charging Export duties instead of import Dut ies but they will be As Busy that it is the French who have hitherto been least Friendly to schemes for improving the european parliament yet it is the French who have demanded the renewal of the agriculture fund and made it their Price for agreeing to negotiate for the common Market membership of two farming nations Ireland and Denmark As Well As great Britain and Norway. It is anybody s guess what Means can be found to sort out this Complex tangle and losing As Little As possible of the re birth of european impetus which seemed so much ances Over a Long period i As they Ever were. The dream in evidence Only a month ago. Cannot have been helpful in of unchallenged passage making the rank and file re across frontiers is still far from reality and this latest step is decisively backwards. The French accepted it gladly enough for it gives them an untrammelled economic con captive to the anti inflation Case. And for Well to do workers the memory of ser ious recession must now be rather dim. Certain it is however that the common Market has never Felt less real than it does now almost on the eve of its formal completion and with the French Call for a Summit meeting still on the Calendar. I in other words inflation should these Low paid workers work at All or if they work always an arg mint in when others do not and gain Little extra from their labor j wage negotiations por their natural sense of injustice will add to the tensions of a i Tod t hese groups not strained society and greatly increase the Many sided j merely to maintain but sub dilemma of government which or. Trudeau is now Ponder-1 Sla Liall to a i re i latino economic positions. Ing. However these questions Are Analysed it is quite Clear first that government has worsened the misfortune of the poor by inflating the Price of All necessities and. Second that there can be no substitute for economic growth As the Only Basic cure for poverty however increasing wealth is redistributed. The nation cannot adequately maintain the social services already established or planned let alone new ones unless real growth As distinguished from the mislead ing figures of an inflated currency is rapid and steady. In his recent television appearance. Or. Trudeau had things in the right order. He enunciated Steps which the government will take to try to combat inflation and. In answer to a question he said thai the idea of a guaranteed income for All canadians still Lay very much in the future. This was Wise because until inflation is brought under control no guaranteed income or any other welfare service can touch More than the outer margin of poverty. Even if their leaders or some of them now decide that inflation has gone far enough suffers identity of interest uniting workers and Farmers and it was the Farmers not the unionists who came to reject this interesting thesis. The latest assertion of the wider Trade Union interest May be found in a speech at Pittsburgh by Donald Mac Donald president of the Csc. Or. Macdonald held that the unionists could take much of the credit for medicare which the Csc unquestionably sup ported. On other occasions similar credit has been his Call for Hie first sweeping claimed system. It is difficult to see How there can by much Solidarity Between those who Benefit i from and those who suffer from inflation i unless people arc prepared to recognize that in the Long run the. Country helping the poor to help themselves Ashing ton Ono i eighth of the population i of the United states is living i in poverty. This is not a guess but the most recent official government statistic. It was Only released to the Public in mid August but it was this and other cold facts about the poverty situation that led president exactly a week earlier to go ahead with i sanitarian. The Liberal critics by Richard Purser neither liberals nor conservatives can fault president Nixon s welfare program. It does away with some of the blatant abuses and it will help the poorest to find their Way into society. Pension Reform of the nation s archaic and disastrous welfare system. As the magnitude of ills proposal sinks in it becomes Clear that to has for the first Lime since taking office gained the upper hand at least in Domestic matters and has his have teen reduced for the time being to sputtering especially since it became known that or. Nixon in his proposal went along with virtual y the Only two sent gets a Job As frequently happens he sees Little reason to get a Job at All. 2. It encourages even forces fathers to desert their families cannot sup thoroughgoing liberals among i children his advisers Urban affairs i welfare port them since dependent Daniel Patrick Arr often denied there is an Able remembered words from Absalom and Achi Topiel by John Dryden Blest madman who could every hour employ with something View to wish or to enjoy railing and praising were his usual themes. And both to show his judg ment in extremes so Over violent or Over civil that every Man with him was god or Devil. Today s scripture Jesus called them unto him and said. Pc know that the princes of the gentiles exercise cd o in i n i o n Over them and they that arc great e x c r c i s c authority upon them. But it shall not be so you but whosoever will to great among you. Lei him be your minister and whosoever will be chief among you. Let him be your servant. Matthew 20 critics reeling. Not that i lie j Moynihan and health Educa critics Aren t there his Call for tin and welfare Secretary a National 1 Well annually for each needy fam ily of four has been attacked on the ground that such a sum is insufficient Ift is but this critical response is oversimplified and begs certain questions As explained later the important Point is or. This Case. But it under Nixon s breathtaking stand on Liberal democratic presidents the present programs up. Bodied male in the House. Specialist 3. In the absence of an i equally applied National Wel National minimum Federal Robert i. Inch overruling a i 1 i Are syst enl variations am one i this sub class Are payment of si.1500 the rest of. Ins aides. I the Stales in welfare i i Phi in hindi improvement Over the past. The number of poor has been j dropping since i960, especially i in the last five years of rapid growth of the Gross National product. There were 35.9 Mil lion americans classed As poor in 1959, in one year alone 1966 the number dropped by 4.7 million from the preceding year. But there Are two sub classes among the poor. There Are those who Are poor because of the economic Situa Tion but who Are brought up to tiie work ethic and Are prepared to take advantage of Opportunity offered by eco nomic growth and the increasing availability of work. Much of the decrease in the ranks of the poor represents gains by it is normally Liberal democratic presidents not Conser alive Republican ones who i publicly proclaim policies to i restore Justice and human dignity which was exactly what president Nixon did in the states in welfare payment left behind and so Bucom Levels encourage migration j ing increasingly dominant from Rural states where pay i among the poor is a near ments arc Low to Industrial states where they Are High. But the Rural migrants often members of minority groups unemployable sub class whose members i with their parents before them have Little concept of the meaning of principle. Hie figures them selves can be taken rare of later coi ims Ilia a Republican president Gener ally considered More conserva Tive than Liberal. Has announced his belief that every american has a right to Basic minimum Standard of living even if the Federal tha were set up. However Well intentioned they have tended to create a sea of injustices and appalachian Whites a nil to remove what Little i Tho situation is so bad that. Dignity the poor Hal left. No one defends them any More. So no Liberal Democrat can attack the president now whose education has been work negligible education no acquaintance with Middle class values and often Are broken Down by a shoddy lil o in childhood. The members of this sub class can Obs i Ved on the Street Corners of the Black ghettos ignored by past policies of their Home states Are pure pared to enter Industrial Socie ties. Haiut the poisonous Urban ghettos of non Whites newspaper reporter in my White do patches. In any search of a horror Story Oti a Dull Clay need Only Knock at random on the door of without being asked to a. Welfare recipient. There Are a eminent has to subsidize it j count for his role in bringing lot of people who need help. In i1ii v ttlf.111 i f i in. _ i i _ by direct payments. This View does not dec ird Well with that piece of an conservative e j d e o o a v popularly k n n As the pin Ilan i work ethic he who works eats he who work does t eat. Jut it re is Lummox the Liberal about the present welfare there is Little Good to be said for the present system three things about it Are downright frightful 1. It discourages i i from e n i e r i n g tile Economy at the. Beginning level of Low paying jobs. Wel sri other Moon to have lung portrayed him fare often pays better than a a cold hearted politician Lov. jobs and if it is Cut n d a anything but n he off outright when the the . Census Bureau which produced the figure of one eighth of americans living in poverty. Say specifically that 2.v1 million people were in that category last year. The poor Bureau defines poverty As the work equivalent of an Urban family of four living on a total income of less than ?3.5o3 based on the 19ijh consumer Price now. This is 3 statist in recipe newly identified and recognized class of the Peren i Nial poor knows from television that. It. Is being left out. It wants to get in. But it. Can t find la Way. President Nix on s Pri Icsal is aimed i the Long rim. At providing them the Vay. It is far Nitro than what will he its Short term of raising the welfare floor and cd Teiling its cover age. For this reason potential conservative criticism is Al most As effectively disarmed is Liberal criticism. Is cond of ;