Right Man For The Job
On the announcement of the re-
S signation of Hon. C.P. McTague as chairman of the Royal Commission on
“Transportation, it was taken matter of course that he «would be
succeeded by Mr. M.A. MacPherson, the acting chairman who presided at the Commission hearings in Char- lottetown and elsewhere since Mr.
' McTague’s illness. But now come
rumors from Ottawa of a move to have Mr. MacPherson disqualified by virtue of his past service as counsel
foe Saskatchewan in freight rate
arguments.
We trust that there is nothing in these reports, or, if true, that the move will get “short shrift from the Diefenbaker Government. Mr. Mac- Pherson is a Maritimer, and he knows freight rate problems, East and West, perhaps better than any man in Can-
ada. By any ‘test of competence or
conscientiousness it is difficult to sée
= where the Government could get a
better chairman.
This view is strongly indorsed by the Winnipeg Free Press, which says: “The notion that Mr. MacPherson,
‘because of past associations, is partial
to one side in the present inquiry is not merely unfair—it is unsupported
by anything that has happened in
: A
~
_<.atidition, when difficult questions have arisen—having to do, for ex- | thé price for Grade A-
the course of the hearings. A man.
of character and integrity, he has
presided over the inquiry with serupulous fairness to both \sides. In
ample, with, the production or ad- missibility of evidence—he has been careful to avoid snap decisions, seek- ing first to narrow differences and then, through consultations with his
2 ‘colleagues, to obtain the collective
judgement of the Commissioners. Certainly there has been no suggest- jon to the contrary from either side
‘im the dispute.”
We have no doubt that our At- *lantic spokesmen are in ‘full agree-
on with_this- Winnipeg comment,
a
‘
which goes on to point out that the _ present hearings are unusually: dif- ficult because they involve not only a clash of interests but also of-power- ful personalities. On a number of ex- plosive occasions, Mr. MacPherson by his intervention succeeded in lower- ing the temperature and keeping the hearings on a steady course. He is certainly the right man for the job.
- Electronic Farm Bosses Farms some day may have a sil-
ent hand to guide them. This hand
Jf
4
will have a college pedigree but no degree, and will never leave the lab- ‘ oratory. It will be an adaptation of - technology to farm planning, and will te? a farmer just what he should pia? or grow on his acres, and how much he should expect for them. It will be a complex and expensive electronic computing machine.-
This is what the Texas Agricul-
_’ ture Experiment Station envisages— '- the day when the farmer will send
F
Pi.
in facts and figures about his farm— his yields, costs, climate, types of soil, available water, and so on—just as today he gathers up various samples of soil from around his place and sends them in to get advice on the amounts and kinds of nutrients he should use to get the best returns from his land.
When the facts and figures are fed into the computers, from these electronic brains will emerge a farm plan that should—it is said—net the
_ farmer the most return for his in- - vestment of time, labor, and money.
bi i
He will get information to help him decide, for instance, whether to con- tinue planting his allotment of wheat, potatoes, barley, or some other crop,
i. or to cut down and turn to more
* Such% of planning already "hasbeen tf use on limited bass penal County, near as spependle meets
Rey a aa
‘to Canada’s
i
a hag
e 7 ae
This may result in taking the un- certainty out of farming operations;
but if raises a lot“of questions of an- ’
other kind. Are we entering an era when human skills will be subordinat- ed entirely to scientific gadgets, that will do not only manual chores for us, but our thinking as well? Truly, “the old order changeth, yielding place to new; and God fulfils himself in many ways.” But there is some- thing terrifying about the dehuman- izing of man’s oldest industry in this fashion.
Orderly Selling Appeal
The attention of our farm readers is directed to the appeal which has been made through the Federal De-
partment of Agriculture in advance
of the change-over in government price support for hogs, from direct
purchases to deficiency payments.
Producers are warned against a last minute marketing rush on the part of those wanting to beat the January 9 change-over deadline.
Clogging the market would mean delayed slaughter; delayed settle- ment, and unnecessary shrinkage. Furthermore, it would probably create an over-supply of underweight hogs, which provide a product not wanted by the trade. Lightweight hogs are subject to discount of at least $3.50 per hundredweight below
Even if the price does fall when the deficiency payment. scheme goes into effect, the farmer will still gain by selling his hogs at market weight in that he will (1) get a better price from the packer, (2) get a Gov- ernment premium on A and B grades, and (3) be eligible for the deficiency payment on A and B grade hogs.
The present offer-to-purchase pro- gram will take in all hogs marketed up to and including Saturday, Jan- tary 9, The deficiency payment sys- tem will affect all hogs marketed on and after Monday, January 11. Producers who have not registered for participation in the deficiency payment program should apply im- mediately.
EDITORIAL NOTES
It is a saddening thought that the Christmas-New Year season will open up, unnecessarily, new graves in the cemeteries. Men, women and child- ren will be killed by impaired or drunken drivers. And of the two classes, it is the impaired rather than the drunken drivers who will likely do the most harm. It takes longer for them to wind up in a ditch, or fall asleep behind the wheel,
Here’s a surprising trend in California education: Summer school is attracting more high school pupils each year. The state department of education reports one out 6f every four public high school pupils was oe in class during the 1959 sum-
Educators pointed out there were “157 school districts offering summer classes in 1959, as compared with 116 last year.
The importance of immigration prosperity was under- lined in a speech recently by Im- migration Minister Ellen Fairclough. Since the end of World War 11, Mrs.
‘Fairclough noted, nearly 1,800,000
immigrants have come to Canada. In the years 1950-1958 immigrants have ertablished 2,358 small businesses in Canada,. have spent more than $28 million in doing so, and have created employment for nearly 9,000 persons. On the farm front, in those same years the newcomers bought 3,879 farms and rented 849 others; pur- chase price of: the farms was over $43 million, and down payments total- led $14 million. Not subject to exact measurement is the indirect con- tribution of 1,800,000 persons—better then 10 per cent of our present total population—as consumers
tl
* THE HONEYMOONERS
OTTAWA REPORT
fence. Our Foreign Minister, Hon. ~L. B. Pearson, predicted that this alliance was “the foundation on which may be built an economic commonwealth, and perhaps
“No vision less than this will do,”’ he asserted.
Our European allies got that vision.
But their hopes were dashed by the refusal of the two North American members of the alli- ance,.fanada and U.S.A., to make any move to implement this. economic partnership, al-
treaty which they had solemnly signed.
Nevertheless, inspired by such visionaries as Britain's Winston Churchill and encouraged by such planners as France’s Jean Mon- net, many of our European allies decided to move ahead without us laggards. They began the ‘enthusiastic planning of a Brave New Trading World, which would see all their workers enjoying shorter hours, their pay exerting greater purchasing power, gad- gets taking the drudgery out of their wives’ home - making, and
PUBLIC FORUM
This column is open to the discus
sion by correspondents of question c.
interest. The Guardian does not neses
sarily et‘orse the opinion ef corres pondents.
“LITTLE WILD THINGS” Sir, —Replying to Miss Carrie Holman's criticism of wild life shooting, I would gently remind many of her fair
if they were denied the privilege of showing off their new fur coats made from domestic and wild animals, such as chinchilla, ermine, persian lamb, otter, the seal that cries like a human baby when shot, and hundreds of others including our domestic lamb which goes to the slaughter by the thousands right on P.E.I. The lamb is the most innocent of all
In many ways the world seems hard. The farmer, for instance, must refrain from making pets of his animals, knowing well their destiny is the slaughter house.
Wishing Miss Holman the sea- gon’s greetings, knowing well her high ideals in life. But those rab- bits made a lot of choice meals right on Prince Edward Icland.
I an, Sir, etc., t GLEN MATTHEWS Alberton.
“NO ROOM IN THE INN” Sir, — At this festive time we read a lot about that first Christ- mas day, because for centuries people had lived and died waiting hoping and praying for that great day that they did not live to see, Many grew weary gazing at the sky for a sign of the promised Redeemer and when that great day did arrive what happened? The Blessed Mother had to tra- vel for miles in her painful state on a donkey seeking a place .to deliver the Saviour of mankind to the world. But there was no room for her in the Inn; she had to go with the animals of the fields into the darkgess of the stable and find a straw - filled manger for the Christ child who had come to redeem mankind. The same picture is flashed to us today. How many children are hungry and cold in stable- like shelters, how many unwant- ed children in shelters and orph- anages, Many whose parents are “living it up,” big shots who
|: brought or caused those children
Partnershi hip For Prosperity
an occupied garage standing be- side every home.
FLAG - SYMBOL OF UNITY Certain continental ations — to go the whole “Pear- * hog, and aim for political
idesation in.a “United Statés of
Europe.” Their need for the re- sultant economic strength ccin- cided fortunately with their psy- chological readiness to accept li- mitation of their national sov- ereignty. Even those historical enemies, France and Germany, are prepared to forget their tra- gic centuries of bloodshed and move ahead together under the new Union flag with six silver stars on a blue ground.
Other of our allies were willing
a partial “economic common- wealth;” notably Britain, whose leaders considered that their membership in a federal union would be incompatible with her place in the Commonwealth.
Rather than join the Europ- ean Common Market, with its aim of federal union, Britain
NATO alliance would be effective- ly disrupted — which has for ten years been Russia’s chief Cold = aim;;)' ignifitahtly, the Seven, unlike < Six, includes nations. outside MATO,..A merger of these t wo groups would «thus — Mr. Pearson’s dreamed - “econo- mic commonwealth” Scobie the NATO alliance. This would bar the benefits of pooled defence production. But it would have a perhaps compensating advantage, in build-
c
wants to be a member of a larger | | f
free trade area which would in- clude the U.S.E. as well as other western nations, and which, while
eliminating internal tariffs, would:
still permit each member to set its own tariffs vis-a-vis the outside world.
Thus a split arose. France, Germany, Italy, Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg formed them- selves into the European Econo- mic Community, or common market, which is headed towards federal union. Britain feared that her immense and important
foreign trade would be crippled
by exclusion from that big mar- ket. So she assembled the loos- er - knit European Free Trade Area, known as “The Outer Se- ven,” consisting of herself, Nor- way, Denmark, Sweden, Austria, Portugal and Switzerland.
SIX, SEVEN SHOULD LINK
“The Seven” lacks the conven- fence, which is enjoyed by ‘The Six,” of being one contiguous land mass; and with a total pop- ulation of 90 million, falls short of the advantageous ‘mass market of 165 million consumers in The Six.
Canada and the U.S. fear that a trade war will develop between these two groupings. Britain how- ever insists that she formed the Outer Seven merely to increase her bargaining power to bring the Six into a larger free trade area. If this is so, says North America sceptically, it would cause an even more disastrous
trade war between our continent | . ’
and Europe. In either case, the | |
room for them in the Inn. There was plenty money and an army of guards to look after them. Only those whom they had be- trayed and whose relatives they had crushed had the courage to come forth and boo them again and again.
Many of us remember and re-
call what they have done and are | ¥ 5
still doing across the world to wipe out any trace of man’s re- demption or that first Christmas, and bring the Christian people of this nation down to their knees to kiss the feet that trampled the baby of \ Christmas in their home land.
Too many of our leaders have gone down on their knees to the hater of Christ and Christmas and all it stands for. The front pages of our daily papers ee splashed with stories of Commun- ist leaders, what they said here and there, Too many papers and
networks are devoting time and
space to. speeches and talks amiong those bullies who are crushing at every turn the Chris- tian world.
The time {fs ripe as never be-
fore in the history of mankind to | | ‘
open the stable, and take the baby, the Redeemer of mankind into the Inn, into our hearts and souls. That is the way to peace in the world, and the only-way.
I am Sir, etc.
WALTER A O'BRIEN Charlottetowa,
es in and
wd , ~ _ : AP fu “ 558 S| + geen yo, . CEQRER 2S: d a : Sie 39 o < nae 5
3
.
nab
e activities of persons ni arr: serves Bo useful Purpose. Thee doctors . studied 168 Pe Sent Giocuse, Bectag ee ting
ui : E a
sf A Fi
lh
af
r i 28
1 |
5 SEag
ait
hh #
|
er I ah
ing a free trade area on a base lother than NATO. For this al-
posal for co - operation in non- military fields, is now regarded distastefully by the rest of the
“7 e . ah Sie y ? gaiaes=. ae ‘ y oi ¢ Bh
past year I have had blackout spells. They last one minute, no longer.
What causes these blackouts?
I don’t have high blood pres- sure.
Answer: “‘Black-out spells” in a person of 70 may be due to one of several causes such as hard- ening of the arteries, small strok- es, heart disease or low blood sugar. st
You should see your doctor, who may determine the cause in your case and prescribe suitable
ld as being merely a military oe oe
see them today !
treatment to prevent these at- tacks, :
-H & C’s own Joe Murphy has done it again... arid just in time for last minute giving too!. He has gathered outstand- ing collection of the finest sport shirts from regular stock, manufactured to sell for from $5.00 to $7.95 ...In order to give your last minute shopping a big lift Joe is offering the top quality shirts at just 3.89. ;
(IT TRB
HERE QUALITY IS St 25
Pe
een, Tard 2
,
Rg ERS
tae 2. \ v pt. WD Ne. ay <a
ne ee a es
bg S wn ®
7A.” Olina Sd
XC
Wane
Pa oe