The Leader-Post from Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada • 17

ts TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1961 Leader-Post Editorials The Leader-Post la published by The Leader-Poet 1853 Hamilton Regina. D. B. Rogers, Editor; Percy B. Keffer, General Manager Member of The Canadian Presa.

Perusing provincial By PETER TRUEMAN WeHes All hlocs guilty of foggy thinking 4 Every elector a shareholder Good UN record for Africans they are in or out of the organization. But if one is thrown out and the other prevented from getting in, how can the UN he expected to have the slightest effect on them? If the UN deems South Africa and Communist China unfit for membership, how can the UN expect either of them to listen to fitness lectures? It was extremely disappointing last week to hear Ambassador Talex Quaison-Sackey of Ghana suggest to the Assemblys special committee that the Security Council might have to consider the expulsion of South Africa, Smarting from the Insults contained in South African Foreign Minister Eric Louws speech to the assembly a few weeks ago, a number of French African Slates went further, calling sharp ly for South Africas expulsion, not just consideration of such a step. Fortunately, it doesn't appear likely they will persist in this vein. Wiser counsel seems to have prevailed. The Ivory Coast, one of the original agitators for explusion, last week took a line similar to that of Ambassador Quaiscn-Saekey.

Instead, it appears that the Africans will press for adoption of a resolution urging member states to impose diplomatic and economic sanctions on South Africa. Such a resolution was approved by a simple majority in committee last year, but the assembly failed to give it the two-thirds approval necessary for adoption. This year, if some of the energy being wasted in calls for explusion is redirected, there is a slim chance that such a resolution might creep through. Sometimes it appears as if the world of international politics is devoid of logic. On one hand, the Africans, at first anxious to expel South Africa, are now calling for a diplomatic and economic boycott.

On the other hand, Canada which does not want Communist China in the United Nations, imposes diplomatic sanctions on the Peiping regime but has no objection to trading with it. To be completely consistent, Canada probably ought to refuse to trade with South Africa. (Copyright: Canada wide) Hes mine! All mine! Every person 13 years of age or older who is a Canadian citizen and who has resided in Regina since Jan. 1 is eligible to vote in Wednesdays civic elections to fill vacancies on the city council and the various school boards. Burgesses those whose names appear on the citys assessment role have added responsibilities, casting their ballots on the six money bylaws which provide for raising $4,210,000 for capital improvements.

If, through an error, an eligible voters name is left off the lists, this can be rectified in double quick time. Without leaving the polling place, such an eligible voter is permitted to take an oath. He or she then votes in the normal manner. The polls open at 9 a.m. Wednesday, and remain open through the lunch and dinner hours until 8 p.m.

The polling places 53 in all are located for the convenience of voters within easy access no matter where they reside. A map reproduced in Saturdays issue of this newspaper facilitates the location of a persons poll. On the map, the city is blocked off into 53 polling subdivisions. To determine the location of a persons voting place, the first step is to locate the area in which he or she resides. Then a key identifies the polling place.

Suppose a voter lives on Rae street, south of Wascana Creek and north of Hill avenue. The numeral in this polling subdivision is 5. The key discloses the voting place in 5 is Lakeview school. Twentieth avenue and Cameron street. If in doubt, it takes only a moment by this simple procedure to locate the polling place.

Having done so. then the next step is to find about 15 minutes Wednesday in the eleven hours between 9 a.m. and 8 p.m., to go to the polling place to vote. Its all so simple and so meagre in its demands on a persons time that the fact only about a third of the eligible electors vote is difficult to understand. Our local governments, our municipal councils and school boards, are said to be the grass roots of our democratic system.

The apathy of civic electors in recent years certainly cannot be construed as a sign of vigor and health in our democratic system of government. Rather, it points to the probability of root rot. Next to the provincial government, running Regina is the biggest enterprise in the province. City council and the school boards spend something like $26,000,000 a year. Everybody contrib utes to produce this revenue.

Taxpayers do so through their property taxes. But renters pay a portion of their landlords taxes through their rent. Owners and renters alike contribute to profits of utilities which are used to pay a part of the citys operating expenses. Accordingly, every elector is a shareholder in the complex enterprise Reginas municipal and educational systems and it is the duty of all to take an active part in picking the boards of directors, the city council, the Collegiate board, and the elementary school boards. City council is responsible for only about a half of the total spending.

This stresses the importance of paying heed to the calibre of persons chosen for the other spending bodies. Burgesses alone have the right approve proposals to raise borrowed money for capital improvements. In theory, their real property is pledged as security for such loans, and amounts needed to repay them with interest are levied each year in taxation on their property. It therefore is right and proper that burgesses alone should vote on money bylaws. In making up their minds on these bylaws, the burgesses normally would be expected to balance the city's ability to pay the costs of borrowed capital against the need of the capital improvements proposed.

Money bylaws before public school supporters will involve a capital outlay of $4,110,000. If approved, they will require taxpayers who are public school supporters to pay about $353,000 in additional taxation each year over the next 20 years, and a lesser amount for the following five years. On the basis of the present taxable assessment, this will represent a shade under 2.5 mills. But as the taxable assessment increases, the number of mills required to raise this amount will be reduced. Thus, in the normal course of events, the burden on individual taxpayers will be reduced progressively.

The citys growth generated the need for the proposed improvements, the two new collegiates, the four new public schools, the storm sewer system extensions and the new swimming pool. Burgesses who are separate school supporters will vote on all but the bylaw for four new public schools. In its place, for them, will be a bylaw to sell debentures for a new $100,000 separate school. The city needs these improvements, a factor which weighs heavily toward the endorsement of the money bylaws. UNITFD NATIONS, N.Y.

-Since the influx last year, there has bean a good deal of expressed talk within these glass walls about African irresponsibility, immaturity and worse. Hut up to now, the African record has been good; better than that of some countries whose experience goes back not two or three or four years, but two or three or four centuries. And the greatest single example of the African new boys irresponsibility, now occurring, is no worse than something the Western old boys have been practising for more than a decade. A number of African states this year have said they want South Africa expelled from the United Nations. This is emotional, foggy thinking, granted.

But is it any more so than the continuing attempts of a number of Western powers to keep the Peoples Republic of China from getting into the United Nations? Indian Defence Minister V. K. Krishna Mcnon of India put the situation in perspective recently while referring to the problem of Chinese representation: "You cannot, he said, have a United Nations wi'h Lie good nations inside and the bad notions outside. This of course, will be Indias line on both questions. From the Indian point of view, neither Couth Africa nor the Peoples Republic of China are the sort one would take home to mother.

But India recognizes that they both exist, that they cannot be obliterated, as Mr. Krishna Mcnon puts it, by "throwing inkpots at them. It is generally agreed by students of the United Nations, that this organization is supposed to reflect a consensus of world opinion. One cannot have a consensus if one or more major political producers are missing. To insist that such a consensus exists without them is to vindicate those who charge the UN is unreal.

Granted, the South African government has ignored the UNs anti-apartheid expressions far years. Granted the Communist Chinese have made it clear they will continue to treat UN resolutions with contempt, whether THE LETTERBOX Readers comment The Editor: Every year at Regina's civic election time there is a great splurge about the apathetival views of Regina voters. How could it be otherwise? It is indeed a long time since we have had anything but a CVA-dominated council. This penny wise and pound shy council backed by an invisible force, a select 400 club, a Cham-b -r of Commerce, or perhaps all three, seems to be so deeply entrenched that it is hopeless to vote against it. As a result we have never had a new broom to sweep the city hall clean even just for once, and the iniquitous plunging of our city into financial abyss goes on unabated.

The most recent decamping of "independents was farcical from the beginning which is now officially confirmed, we are invited to vote for CVA-backed independents. How is it on many occasions we have been close to an RCA victory and one, two or three would desert from the RCA after being elected, to tip the scales back to a CVA majority? This mysterious practice has occurred with clockwork precision. Could it be their natural weakness and calibre to follow the trend of least resistance, or why can we not get more candidates in the RCA who have the courage of their own convictions? In conclusion may I say that no man is indispensable. The extent to which we will be missed after we are not there, is the hole left in a pail of water in which we dip our hands, and then withdraw them again and this, I am afraid applies to the best of them. R.

DOERKSEN Regina HIBBS DEFENDED UNICEFs ghostly workers Origins of Hallowe'en By MADELINE TAUCIIMAN Two touchy problems, currently before the Saskatchewan people, have been given close scrutiny by the weekly press in recent days. While basically agreeing with a universal medical care plan for the province. The Swirt Current Sun nonetheless takes issue with Premier T. C. Douglas because of his unseeming haste to implement the scheme.

Asking Whats AH the Rush Thomas? The Sun expresses its opinion In the following way: "Heads of government, like the rest of us, can sometimes be exasperating. A current example is Premier T. C. Douglas. He is, come heU or high water, going to rush passage of the medical care insurance bill through the legislatures in spite of the serious opposition to some aspects of the measure.

If ever there was a "rail-road job done on a government bUl, this is it, period. "We think there is no question of pubUc support for the complete medical care plan proposal, but when certain aspects of it are questioned by those who advised the government on it, and when it generates insurrection in the ranks of the medical profession, without whose co-operation it cannot function, then we think it is time tha gov-ernment held it up long enough to take a second look at it "That the government has no such intention has been mada plain by its chief draftsman. Premier Douglas himself. When asked by opposition leader Ross Thatcher what action the government proposed to take in view of the reported opposition of the Saskatchewan College of Physicians and Surgeons, Douglas said, in effect, that nothing was going to be done. The doctors have already expressed their views, he is reported to have added, and it is hoped (by the government, presumably) that the doctors decision will be reconsidered when the medical insurance bill has been passed.

In other words, when it is too late. "This doesnt sound like the Tommy Douglas who, in his ear-ly election-stumping days, was publicly bemoaning the arrogance of government and the de-ciine of public influence. It sounds a bloated politician determined to make personal capital of a controversial issue against the whispering of his better judgment. For surely a man as wise as the premier in the workings of the electorate mind knows it will not tolerate, with out retaliation any action to capitalize at Ihe public expense. Al-ready the electorate is beginning to wonder if the premier is rush-ing the contested medical care bill in order to wear it his nut when he hangs it in his office as leader of the New Democratic Party.

If so, he mav leave his successor without a hat at all. So we say: "Whats all the rush, Thomas? If the medical insurance bill is as good as the government claims and we are convinced that, then it should be ab'f lo stand up against the stiffest kind of opposition. It may take time to convince everybody, but if it holds water, then even the hard-to-convince doctors will give it their support and blessing. But right now they and a great many other people are from Missouri. Reminding its readers that "It Never Happened, the Rose-iown Eagle takes unit teachers to task for threatening a strike for higher wages at a time when the districts economy is not in a prosperous state.

It expresses the hope that the two-year contract that ended the dispute will give both parties time to become more realistic before wage negotiations again come up. The Eagle says: "The teachers and the unit board have settled their dispute over teachers salaries. It was a compromise with both sides giving a Uttle. The contract is for a two-year period which, if the economic situation of the province does not improve next year, might well be of more advantage to the teachers than the increase in salary they requested. As parents we are all grateful that the thing is settled but as taxpayers we were, and still are, disturbed that such action was ever threatened in the first place when we consider the inescapable fact that this province has suffered the worst financial setback since 1937.

"This crop year is not the disaster of 1937 nor is it to he compared with the "dirty thirties" (the crop average is estimated at 8.3 bushels), but those who think that the income from a half crop with many getting very little or no crop at all is a sound financial basis to demand an increase in salary, are being unrealistic ar hopelessly uninformed. This is the main reason that the average taxpayer is disturbed. "It is interesting to recall only last month at the teachers convention held in Rosetown that President A. Warkentin in his address, and on the topic of salaries, he stated that unit boards must share their periods of prosperity with teachers, and as a result, teachers could well agree to share periods of depression with unit boards. Granted, we know that the strike vote was not unanimous, but surely those who favored the strike were not of the opinion that this Is a period of prosperity.

A scary time for children Tonight junior-sized witches, goblins and assorted other spirits will be abroad in communities across the land in their annual quest for largesse. Some householders, as they greet the Halloween ghosts, will be reminded of another spectre which stalks through less fortunate lands a grim apparition of famine and want that exacts its toll in disease, and malnutrition. As they open the doors of their warm, well-provisioned homes tonight and hear requests for tricks or treats coupled with UNICEFs Halloween program, citizens will remember that a huge proportion of the worlds population many of them children live in want. Hallowen collections for UNICEF were discontinued in Regina a few years ago and children instead brought donations to their schools. But this year the boxes will reappear in Regina.

The younger members of the Boy Scout movement, cubs, carrying identification tags, will be asking for UNICEF help. UNICEF's program is sponsored by the national UNICEF committee, United Nations Association in Canada. Donations placed in the UNICEF boxes carried by young Canadian spooks go to swell the United Nations Childrens Fund which is used to aid needy mothers and children abroad. Last fall, Canadian youngsters collected some $260,000 in small coins to help UNICEF help in turn 55,000,000 women and children in 55 countries. Candies and apples will always be Halloween fare.

But the UNICEF boxes borne by tonights callers are tokens of a desire of children to aid children. They are symbols, to some extent, of self-denial in an effort to extend succor to others. The program is supported, not only by UN organizations, but by educational and community groups across Canada. It is an excellent opportunity to channel youthful energy away from mischief and self indulgence into a worthwhile humanitarian project. Practical civil defence plan Buggies on rooftops and jugs run up on schoolhouse flag poles were among the a 1-loween pranks of an earlier day in the Fortunately, tipped over privies and other rowdy and often dangerous tricks carried out by boys and young men in nocturnal forays have largely become something of the past.

Halloween is now thought of simply as a time for children. Wearing costumes and grotesque masks, or draped in sheets, they troop from door to door with the familiar shout, Halloween apples! and the accompanying threat of trick or treat. It is a scary time for the smaller children what with ghosts and witches and grinning jack o'lanterns bobbing about in the darkness and well it might be with its heritage of strange and evil practices coming out of the past. Among the mystic rites and ceremonies of the ancient Druids was the Festival of Sam-an, lord of death. The last day of the year fell on Oct.

31 and it was then that the souls of the wicked were called together and their fate for the coming year decided. It was believed that the souls of the good entered the bodies of other human beings after death but the souls of the wicked were condemned to inhabit the bodies of animals. In Ireland it was thought that evil spirits came out of the Cave of Cruachan in Connaught this night and with them came copper-colored birds that killed farm animals and stole babies. It was known also as the Vigil of Saman and fires were lighted on' the hillsides in hotior of the sun god whose festival, falling on the first day of the new year, would be celebrated when the dark night of evil was over. During the Roman rule in Great Britain, the Druid priests were outlawed but many of their rites and customs survived and to these were added other observances peculiar to the Festival of Pomona, the Roman goodess who presided over the harvest and the frutts of the orchards.

The early Christian church tried to obliterate such practices by adopting Nov. 1 as All Hallows or All Saints Day. But the belief that ghosts and witches wandered abroad on the Eve of All Hallows persisted. The Christian church, itself accepted the existence of witches for some centuries and in 1003 the parliament of England enacted a law making witchcraft punishable by death. The French, too, zealously hunted down witches and at Toulouse as many as 400 women were put to death at one time on this charge.

Persecutions reached such a point in the American colonies during the seventeenth century that a woman in Salem, Massachusetts, undertook to make apple dumplings in court to prove her innocence when her accusers claimed that she could not have gotten the apple inside the dumplings she baked for her family without the aid of sorcery. She was acquitted. Through the years Halloween gradually lost its fearsome aspect. It became a time when various methods were used to forecast the future. The Irish made a dish of mashed potatoes and turnips and chopped onion, into which was stirred various small items.

The one who got the ring would be married within a year, the finder of a small china doll would have children, the recipient of a thimble would never marry, and the one who drew the coin would be wealthy. Scottish lasses sat before a mirror at midnight eating an apple, certain that they would see the face of their future husband looking over their shoulder. To the general merriment of bobbing for apples in a tub of water, the English added the game of suspending a stick by the middle, to one end of which was fastened an apple and to the other end a lighted candlle. When the stick was set spinning, the trick was to bile the apple as it came past without, in turn, getting burned by the flame of the candle. The jack o'lantern had its origin in Scotland.

The story goes that a man named Jaek was so miserly that he could not get into heaven and neither was he permitted to enter hell because of the practical jokes he had Ghostly visits Dusk ushers in this Autumn night, A strange new world of fantasy. Where any chiming doorbell might. Announce a most horrific sight Of creatures odd but yet polite Who proffer yawning sacks so hopefully. When you have added to their store And they have gone in cheerful haste, (The night is short, no time lo waste!) Alls peace for, say, two seconds more. GLADYS JfcKAY Yorktml played on the devil.

Thus he was condemned to wander the earth with a lantern on All Hallows Eve. Scottish children made lantern of hollowed-out turnips with a candle inside similar to the pumpkin jack olanterns which are part of Halloween fun for children on this continent. The custom of going from door to door for Halloween treats probably had its origin centuries ago when Irish peasants begged goodies from each household for a feast in honor of St. Columba who supplanted the Druid lord of death and became one of the patron saints of Ireland. But perhaps the weirdest Hallowe'en party of ail is one described in an old document.

Summoned by the devil, the witches gathered in a glade on the Eve of All Hallows. Seeming like ordinary women except on this one night, the witches were those who had sold their souls to the devil. In order to slip out of their homes undetected, they place a stick in their beds rubbed with the fat of murdered babies, which was transformed into the likeness of themselves. Then they flew up the chimney on broqmsticks accompanied by black cats. Cats were held sacred as they were believed to have been human beings changed into that form because of their wicked deeds.

To this meeting the devil came riding on a goat. The witches drank out of horses skulls and danced in a circle, moving from west to east, or widdershins. They performed their macabre dance by the illumination of a torch stuck between the horns of the goat and the music of the bagpipes played by the devil himself. When the torch burned out the revelry ended and the witches gathered the ashes to be used in their incantations during the coming year. When the small witches of Regina return home after their Hallowe'en parties or their round of doorbell ringing, they will have something far more valuable to them than any witches potion.

'They will seach deep into hags stuffed with apples, candy and chewing gum to count up their loot with satisfaction. They have their own incantations and black magic formulas for ensuring a harvest of goodies the next Halloween, to which one householder will attest ruefully. Arriving home late on Hallowe'en after the treat-giving was over, he and his wife found a slip of paper stuck in their door. Cm it was a sketch of two little birds and they were singing, "Cheap! Cheap!" The Regina branch of the Canadian Legion deserves full public support in its practical approach to a civil defence program. In organizing its warden service, similar to the set-up that played such an important part in Britain during Second World War air raids, the Legion is establishing Canadas first such plan.

It appears to be a logical supplement to national and provincial emergency measures, especially at this time when relatively new techniques are being developed in the vital defence against nuclear arms. The Legion plan, too, because it functions at a community, neighborhood level, largely through personal contact, can do much to overcome one of the main obstacles facing programs directed on other levels public apathy. This is recognized by civil defence officials who have commended the warden plan. At present, classes are being held for prospective wardens every week in the Legion Memorial Hall. They are taught the rudiments of civil defence.

It is planned that a warden, trained in the techniques of first aid, fire-fighting, rescue operations and other skills will preside over a district. His will be the responsibilty for organizing various projects in the event of any emergency. It is planned, as training facilities and organization become more advanced, that neighborhood cells, headed by a warden will become smaller and more numerous. The warden plan cannot, of course, replace the broader organization set up on other levels. Nor will it usurp the role of the militia in civil defence.

It is, however, a voluntary, practical program to provide leadership in a field whore it is vitally needed. The plan, no doubt, will be watched closely by other Canadian centres. The public can make it a success, not only by volunteering to serve as wardens a role that demands certain, specialized qualifications but by acquainting themselves with their district warden when the plan finally goes into operation. The Editor: As a young married man with two young children I am writing this letter in answer to Mr. William Spence on ids ridiculous attack on Aid, Los Hibbs.

I agree that it was not Aid. Hibbs duty or authority to be mediating between neighbors on trivial items such as fallen leaves. I have not met Aid. Hibbs personally but as a young family man 1 am supporting him in the coming election. DAVE 7ARA.N Regina put up harriers to outside investment that throttle development.

How much more slowly would the United States have grown if we had placed discriminatory barriers in the road of foreign capital and entrepreneurship? Any country that wishes to develop its resources, and increase the real income of its people, is destined to take a slower path if it relies exclusively on savings gem rated from within. For one of the centra! characteristics of a low-income economy lies precisely in the relatively low levels of savings that it can produce. U.S. Chamber of In the lexicon of international politics, no word is more badly, or basely, used than imperialism. The tale of rich countries impoverishing little nations has been told thousands of times, apparently gaining converts each time around the circuit.

One result of this widely held, if dubious belief is a certain ambivalence toward investment by foreigners in developing countries. While outside sources of capital spur development in the recipient country, fears of "colonialism, or just plain foreign domination havp led many countries to Many ideas When New Zealand civil servants were asked for idas on how to simplify official forms, the response was overwhelming. At the close of the campaign 1 suggestions were in, and more were coming. The government hopes to achieve substantial economies by examining the suggestions. Canadian Press (.

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