Calgary Herald from Calgary, Alberta, Canada • 5

Economic Belt Tightening Pae Five Price Of Austerity Is High In Ceylon THE CALGARY HERALD Today's Best From 1 I A more food. Nearly every month, he makes a tour of the villages. He urges more use of higher yielding rice seeds, more fertilizer and the cultivation of idle land. He carefully jots down complaints about lack of credit or irrigation. Statistics here as elsewhere in South Asia are often imaginative projections of local officials' wishes.

But there. are signs that the campaign is paying off. Every villager this correspondent talked to on a swing north of Colombo said he knew of the drive and was receiving more fertilizer and more seed. The government claims that the paddy, or rice plant yield last year was a record bushels, a gain of When Senanayake returned to power in 1965, he banked on generous Western aid to bail him out. To that end, he quickly settled the long dispute over compensation for the U.S.

oil companies his predecessors had nationalized. But the big aid money never came and Ceylon is struggling with half the $1,000,000 it sought and could use each year. So Dudley, as nearly everyone here calls him, belatedly asked the Ceylonese to do for themselves. Local plants are producing cement, tires, steel, textiles and other goods. But they are crippled because there isn't enough hard currency to import raw materials and parts.

Dudley's major effort has been a campaign of almost military dimensions to grow nearly 20 per cent despite dry weather. Even bigger gains are claimed for potatoes, onions, corn and chil-ies, the tongue burning green vegetable without which no Ceylonese meal is complete. There is reason to believe that Ceylon will meet Dudley's target of producing three quarters of its rice consumption by 1970. On the whole, economists would give Senanayake good grades for his courageous effort. But the voters who are suffering under his program are not so happy.

Dudley has a scant two years in which his plans must pay off. If they don't, a strong leftist coalition, led by the former prime minister, Mrs. Sirima Bandaranaike, is waiting to take over. (Copyright) Problem Of Money The Herald's Mail Bag Basement Development Is Advocated To Ease Calgary Housing Problem drove smart foreign cars and kept tasty Australian beef in imported refrigerators. But the currency reserves are nearly exhausted.

Ceylon's non aligned Balancing Act which brought in aid from the West, Russia and China, has not been enough to refill the coffers. At the same time, Ceylon has become a classic example of a vulnerable single crop economy. Two-thirds of the island's exports are tea and prices have been falling precipitously. One-fourth consists of rubber and coconuts and world prices for both have also been sinking. Even worse, prices for all the finished goods Ceylon must import have been climbing.

Today Ceylon must sell four pounds of tea, rubber and coconuts to buy the same textile yardage that three pounds purchased in 1960. Moreoever, there is little hope that things will get better. Ceylon's tea faces growing competition from Indian and African bushes. Rubber and coconut oil prices sink under the weight of synthetics. To stop Ceylon's slide to disaster, Dudley Senanayake, the shrewd and amiable 56-year-old prime minister, has been cutting back on the good life.

Non essential food imports have been banned almost entirely and food accounts for more than half of the island's import bill. The rice giveaway has been slashed in half although this has been sweetened by distributing two pounds free of any charge. The over-valued rupee has been brought a bit closer to reality by a 20 per cent devaluation. This makes imports dearer and thereby further reduces what is still allowed to come in. The welfare budget is being trimmed and more than 10 per cent has been taken off the current year's health and school outlays.

"We are finally doing what we should have done 20 years ago," says a leading editor, and many thoughtful islanders agree. But the price of austerity is high. Officially, one in seven are jobless and the real total is probably higher. Consumer costs are rising, everything is in short supply and incomes per person are perhaps 6 per cent under the 1960 level. Wednesday, Mar.

6, 1968 Europe (England) would undoubtedly be prepared to install high-standard basement suites at their expense. It is my, suggestion that those who own single family dwellings, valued at less than $20,000, currently zoned Rl in the City of Calgary, and the premises properly qualify, be permitted, should they so desire, to construct basement suites to rent to those who A Solution For Obtaining Licence Plates Editor, The Herald: I don't agree with your diatribe on the lack of facilities for the motorist to obtain licence plates in this city. There js a very simple solution no queuing no waiting mail the application, with a cheque or money order, to the motor vehicles branch, sit back and wait for the mail man to bring your licence plates. Simple and very satisfactory. A yearly editorial reminder to your readers of this method would do more good than your bemoaning that the government is remiss in providing adequate facilities.

Let's keep the cost of government down instead of thinking of ways to increase it. Let the existing facilities be used for emergencies and changes of ownerships during the year, which should be their normal functions in the first place. SIMON LABROSSE, Calgary. omic necessity. The Ceylon-ese, now nearly 12,000,000 of them, have been living well by Asian standards for most of the 20 years since their independence from Britain.

Their income per person is about twice that of their huge Indian neighbors. Thanks to the currency reserves built up during the Second World War, Ceylon created a little welfare state. Neat, open-sided and roofed schools are scattered all over the pleasant green hills. About 70 per cent of the islanders are literate, a rate more than double India's. Clean clinics appear every few miles, dispensing free drugs and medical service.

Until almost a year ago, every citizen got four pounds of rice a week for about a dime. The well-off, in their handsome villas in Colombo, conditions at extreme cost to city tax payers. Personally, I have no desire to have another family live in my home. However, as a candidate in last year's ald-ermanic race, I am keenly interested in problems connected with our city and concerned for those persons in desperate need of accommodation. There pre a number of people, young married couples, young single people moving into our city for the benefits it offers.

These same persons are equally important in our community as any others and it is our obligation as citizens to see that they do have the facilities for their needs. Properly, those responsible for planning in the city have concern for the beneficial development of the city as a whole. However, the reasoning which prevents Rl zoning to allow a qualification to allow basement suites of a high standard is indefensible. The development as suggested above would also spread the use of school facilities more generally throughout the city and, in turn, have a benefit in reducing the number of new schools being built, again at increased cost to our citizens. Again I repeat, I believe many of the citizens in this community who have their own homes would be, and are prepared, to erect basement suites of a high quality and, with themselves as owners of the property, be better able to administer its maintenance than would public housing administered by public officers.

DcLOY M. SALLENBACK, Calgary. It applies to every section in the province that in bygone yars was divided in the minds of its people into geographic areas, boundaries of which today are meaningless. Another unfortunate aspect today is that one part is inclined to "needle" another part. This is fine in the jocular sense.

At times it is even fun. What is unfortunate about it is the newcomer does not have the knowledge of the whole to appreciate the fact it is meant to be jocular. He takes it seriously, as often as not. The consequence of the "joking" is the repetition of it is really bad advertising. Poking fun at each other is fine, but it is like a family joke.

That is fine, too, but only when the family is small. The joke has no particular meaning to others who join the family. The Alberta family has grown pretty big, and it is time it grew up in the process. EDMONTON HAS A splendid summer attraction in its Klondike Days, and Calgary has a splendid attraction in its Stampede. Why there should be so much yattering that one is outpacing the other obtaining attractions better than the other, or greater in number, and that sort of thing is beyond' me, when the two combined, being of different could be the means of making a summer visit to Alberta that much more meaningful.

Let's forget we have "northern Alberta" and "south-j ern Alberta," the "southeast corner" or the "northwest corner." or for that matter such divisions as Calgary and Edmonton, Banff and Jasper or what have you. IPt's have an Alberta. All of which is respectfully submitted. COLOMBO, Ceylon Dutch cheese and Italian sausage are disappearing from Elephant House and other markets here. Car owners are beginning to cannibalize their Hillmans and Humbers for spare parts.

By Bernard D. Nossiter The Washington Poet Ceylon's cricket team will not make its planned spring tour of England, saving scarce foreign exchange. The Indian saris that every woman wants now arrive only when smugglers slip them in on the lovely beaches. These are some of the signs that austerity has finally come to Ceylon, an agreeable island with an appetite for the comfortable life. The belt tightening here has been dictated by harsh ecdn- find housing a difficulty.

This provision would allow areas which are pleasant, attractive and now serviced by all facilities to be more beneficially used than at the present time. The city, through its various departments, could maintain the quality of plumbing, heating and electrical requirements by inspection during construction of such suites. A number of homes have been built in this city in the last ten to fifteen years with large, roomy basement areas, now waste space to the families owning them. While it may be that basement suites conjure visions of past crowded areas, low head room and health hazards, it is highly questionable whether cheap home wild the reduced quality of plumb'ng. heating and electrical standards built under the auspices of public finance and public administration would result in other than eventual poor quality living River Pollution Editor, The Herald: I am writing on behalf of Victoria School's seven-to-thirteen class.

We have noticed that people are dumping garbage in the waters of the Elbow River. They also dump bed springs, shopping carts, tires, oil and liquor bottles into the water. I have seen dead fish floating down with the current. We would like to know what we can do. After all, the Elbow is a beautiful river.

Do these people think the river is the garbage can in their own back yards? MISS SANDRA CRAWFORD, Calgary. and got over the point they have a great deal to offer the Albertan himself, they would justify their existence in a manner which apparently has not occurred to them. They would also gain more popular support from the individual. Not to mention appreciation of their work. IF THE ALBERTA Tour-ist Association, the province-wide body, were to embark on a "Know Alberta" campaign which it has discussed it would find it had an army of boosters, once it got that army on the move.

If the Calgary Tourist and Convention Association were to spread more information about the beauties of what lies around Calgary without ever going into the mountains, it would, I feel, gain greater liaison with the citizens than by telling them of the numbers who come, or are expected to come, to see the city. For one thing, it would have a built-in market within the city itself. The city grows by leaps and bounds, (which isn't coining an expression by any means) and most of those newcomers remain totally ignorant of the true enjoyment of living in Calgary. I keep telling people who ask me if I like living here, that it isn't the city (there are hundreds like it and you can't photograph a but in what lies around Calgary. That is the true appeal of Calgary.

We have become too bogged dawn in the perpetuation of something that existed years And only for a brief period. We ignore what X's'd then and nou'd he enjoyed for the viewing, and w'iat rrmains today, with the viewing nf it a. much more simnle task. The same applies lo Edmonton and to Red Deer. ion even though Mr.

Johnson denies it has ever reached cabinet consideration, is the cutting of the sales tax to 7 per cent but its extension over all goods including food, which is now exempt. (Compensation would be allowed people living on marginal incomes.) The most obvious way the government can recoup some of its expenses, says one economist, is an increase in income tax probably to be paid by the earners, the income group which provides the Union Nationale with its least support. Although a heavy deficit is expected, economists do not feel the government can increase its borrowing, whose target was in the last fiscal year. Another thing most economists agree on is that concern about separatism is not hurting the Quebec economy significantly now. This concern, which reached a peak following President Charles de Gaulle's visit last summer and was accompanied by a wave of selling of Quebec bonds, has died down.

But indirectly, separat keeps repeating wow." habitants." When Lord Elgin was sent to Canada as governor-general the following year he was instructed to allow Canadians to run their own affairs, and that was why he did not oppose the Rebellion Losses Bill, or try to stop the rioting later. Then, in February, 1850. Lord Russell astonished Canadian reformers by stating in the House of Commons that it had been Britain's duty to train the colonies for independence, and he looked forward to the happy day when ire tie wi.ii Canida cwld be severed. Canada could then govern herself as she might choose and Britain would no longer be responsible. Robert Baldwin was shocked and said that he had been Liddell's Column ism may be hurting Quebec.

The feeling in some economic circles in the province is that Mr. Johnson is spending too much time on constitutional matters at the expense of long-range economic planning. This is in an effort to mollify the Quebec nationalists, if not separatists. Education last year claimed 27.2 per cent of the budget, the most awarded to any ministry. This amounted to slightly more than $736,000,000.

This year it is expected to reach $1 billion. Health costs in 1967-68 were $605,000,000, 22.5 per cent of the budget. They also will be up this year. Economists are quick to agree that Quebec is far from being the only government in Canada, certainly Ottawa included, has money woes. However, probably no province has seen its annual budgets increase as rapidly as has Quebec's since the advent of the "quiet revolution" under Jean Lesage in I960.

Mr. Johnson, who realizes a tax increase would court unpopularity, also knows that such a move could hurt investment. (Copyright) By Bob Bowman fighting against plans to dismember the empire. Lord Elgin said in a report to the Colonial Office. "I never saw him so moved." OTHER EVENTS MARCH 1613 Champlain sailed on sixth voyage to Canada with instructions to search for the North West Passage.

1834 York was made a city and renamed To1 onto. 18S4 Free public library established at Toronto. 1889 Toronto customs office destroyed novels by Zola for heing obscene. 1925 Nova coal miners went on strike until Aug. 6.

1957 Supreme Court of Canada nullified Quebec "padlock law." QUEBEC Quebecers, the most heavily taxed population in Canada, face another tax increase as government spending rises rap-idely despite austerity appeals from Premier Daniel Johnson. By William Boyd Telegram Newt Service Government spokesmen refuse to comment on the chances of a tax increase, but economists familiar with the government say it is the only way Quebec can meet its spending objectives. No one in Quebec expects the budget deficit of $1 billion that was predicted in some newspapers last month. But certain economists anticipate one of almost $500,000,000, which would be more than three times that of 1967-68. The budget comes down late next month.

Quebecers already pay an 8 per cent sales tax, the highest in Canada, and it is unlikely that the government, which squeaked into power in the June, 1966, election, could survive if this was raised. One suggestion, which has run into stiff opposit "I'm sorry sir, just lhe House of Commons in Britain with 10 resolutions dealing with Canadian demands. He did not feel that Canada was ready for responsible government because if Canadians were capable of running their own affairs then they were capable of independence. Reform leaders Joseph Howe, of Nova Scotia, and Robert Baldwin, of Upper Canada, hit back, very effectively. Howe's open letters to Ird Russell are classics of literature.

When Lord Russell became prime minis er in 1846 there was a fresh declaration of British poiity. is neither possible nor desirable to carry nn the aov-tn-ment of any British province in North America in nonosi-tion lo the opinions of its in Editor, The Herald: The pressing problem of adequate housing in Calgary has been considered by the various governing bodies with what appears to be no definite solution without involvement of public funds. To say the least, the involvement of public funds for housing will definitely reflect in higher costs to the Individual taxpayer, already burdened with more than his proper share of obligation to this community. The fact is that there are a number of persons who, if given an opportunity as individuals, would undoubtedly be prepared to provide a solution themselves to the dilemma, with little or no cost to the city, provincial or federal governments. These persons are home owners, who, having adequate space and undeveloped basement areas, Noise Nuisance Editor, The Herald: With so much evidence of harm done to the nervous system (The Business Beat, The Herald, Feb.

28) it is strange nothing appears to be done to eliminate the unnecessary and various noises people suffer from. As far as this city is concerned, no one could care less. Motors on vehicles are uncontrolled by drivers, motorcyclists roar around. Even in residential districts the blasts go on. Where deliveries are made by heavy vans after midnight, sleep is impossible.

'This is ts important as stopping the shopping-cart problem. Fine the offenders. ANTI-NOISE, Calgary. WHAT ALBERTA NEEDS is more Albertans, and I do not mean citizens. I mean Albertans who see the province for what it is, a place of wide expanse of land and sky; of lakes and mountains, of prairies, park-lands, foothills, bushlands, timber.

Yes, even of mysterious muskeg. It needs Albertans who appreciate the great variety of the physical and geographical aspects of their province as a whole not bits and pieces of it that are of their particular section. SECTIONALISM IS one of the greatest drawbacks, if not the greatest drawback 'to the whole of Alberta becoming better understood and its manyfold pleasures appreciated. I do believe the newcomers among us, and particularly the Americans brought here by the oil and kindred industries, have a better understanding of and esteem for the whole province than do those of long standing. To some extent their work makes the newcomers rovers.

To rove is useless unless the rover be inquisitive at least he does not fully enjoy or profit from his roving. The native born is inclined to look only upon his own back yard. The latter is inclined to feci he must travel thousands of miles to see and enjoy what in most cases is right at home were he to get out and look for it. ONE OF THE BEST thines that could happen to Alberta would be for it to drop the terms "northern Alberta-' and "southern A'berla." from the usage so common today. Years ago when travel was distances greater and land heing opened, the terms applied and had meaning.

Thon, for a man from Lcth- Ken bridge to journey through the Peace River country would have been like going such a distance it was the equivalent of entering a foreign land. At least that would have been his impression, I am sure. It was a journey, not a jaunt. He had to have a reason for going there. That reason was chiefly business.

He went by train, saw what he could see from the coach windows, did his business and returned. Consequently he learned little about another part of his province. He did not talk about it, having little to talk about because he had learned little. What he did say was a form of word-of-mouth advertising, but generally it concerned the land as a productive force. He wasn't interested in its attraction for other reasons, if.

indeed, he was interested in enjoying himself. He was too busy making a living and too busy looking for a fairly nice place in which to do it. ALBERTA SUPPERS because of that today. It does not suffer because any person or group of persons intended it should be so. It suffers because as what few generations we have had were changed, the succeeding generation was not inclined to do its own exploring.

One reason for this was the previous generation gave the new generation no reason for doing so. There were other reasons, born of economic and international stresses, but they are too numerous to mention. All of those things are of yesterday. The point at issue what is to be dine about tomorrow? If our tourist associations were lo overcome the impression Ihey have unintentionally left "that they deal with visitors from other places, Flashback On Canada MARCH 183T There are many people in the world, including Canadians, who do not understand Canada's independence as a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations. They believe that Canada and other nations of the Commonwealth are subservient to Britain because the Queen is the head of state.

During the development of the reform movement, 1830-1850. Canadians nearly negotiated themselves into a state of independence Ion? before they were ready for it. In ltd. when the demand for responsible government led to rebellions in t'owr an'l Iiw-cr Canada, Britain was puz-zori to kn iw what to dn On March fi. Colonial Minister Lord John Russell presented.