i PAGE___FOUR l . IllE iiillll l.” TT Eluwli G "All" Mil

Morning Daily (Founded lllfll

Preaitlent. Hen-Col. W. Chute: S. MeLIre Vlee Prmldent. J. l. Burnett, IJ-L leere ,. L-Cel. D A. Iaelinnon. 0.8.0. lditor and M Dlrtctfl, J. I. Barnett, IJJ. Associate for, hank Walks

SUBSCRIPTION BATES

flmperyearllnadvanoeiniailediol’. $5.00 oer year ttn advance) mailed to Canada Member: Audit Bureau of Circulation

cipalities in which loans have now been approv- ed to 293. An additional, twenty-one 9O per cent loans pennissable on homes with a lending value of 2.500 _0r less brings the number of these loans to 103 in the 5_months since the National Hous- ing Act came into operation in August. Loans 1n the smaller and more remote communities and special districts of larger centres, encouraged by special guarantee in the National Housing _ Act, show an increase of 40, bringing the nuin- ber in this classification to 440, _ Of the 377 family housing units financed dur- ing the month, 49 or 13 per cent were financed by loans of $2.500 or less; 135 or 35.8 per cent by loans ranging between $2,501 and $3,000; 10o or 26.5 per cent by loans rangirig from $3,- ooi to $3,500; and 43 or 11.4 per cent by loans ranging from $3,501 to $4,000. Total Housing Act loans to December 31, 1938, and divided according to Provinces, are as follows:

"The Sfroiweef Membry in Wealireri Hid: ' the léolcesf Ink.” 11111115111111, raivuapv, m, 10a

The Bren Gun Report

Much is being made in the Liberal press of the fact that Mr. Justice Davis in his report on

the Bren machine-gun contract had cleared of- Units Amount ficials of the Department of National Defense Frill“? Edward ISiIHXd I5 $ 30.034 of any suspicion of graft. The fact is, of course, Nova Scotia 431 1.330.950 that this Royal Commission was not called to in- New Brunswick 118 505,117 vestigate charges of graft. No such charges had Quebec 1.741 7,521,461 been made. The inquiry was made following Ontario 3.380 12.917420 a magazine article by Col. George A. Drew Manitoba 218 914.853 pointing to certain circumstances in connection! Saskatchewan 7 25,000 wlflt the Bren contract which were allegedly Alberta -—— 0 not in the public interest. British Columbia 1.210 3.883.167

In this connection the Commissioner in his l-i report says: "in the absence of any competitive 7,132 $27,678,002 bids or terms of manufacture I am unable to pass upon the substance as distinct from the I Edl-lurii" Nun” I

form of the contract. It is important, of course, that the contract be a good and businesslike con- tract; but what is more important after all is whether the procedure adopted in making the contract was that best calculated to protect the public interest and to secure the confidence of the people of Canada that there would be no improper profiteering in the private manufac- ture of war armaments for the defense of the country. That is a question upon which the Government and Parliament, in the light of the evidence brought before the Commission, must pass."

Mr. justice Davis, in effect, declares that he cannot say whether the contract is good or bad. iIe goes further. He declares, expressly and in detail in one or two instances, and by implica- tion in the gross, that the methods of arriving It the contract were not sound nor efficient methods. His real conclusion upon what took place is in his recommendation for a change of methods; for a Defence Purchasing Board, di- rectlv responsible to the Prime Minister or to the Minister of Finance (not to the Minister of National Defense) to take care of all future similar contracts.

It may be argued, says the Ottawa journal, that the Commissioner's report might have had more finality; that it was his duty, and not the duty of Parliament, to make a pronouncement

james Watt, inventor of the steam engine,

born this date, 1736_ v I

U 4

Under the Home Improvement Loan scheme, 185 people in the city have Jeceived a total of $63,485.16.

I i I I

just a week till the anniversary of the “jan- war blast that blew hansel in 011 Robin," but evidently its celebration is to be lcit to Mon- tague and Summerside.

r v It r

The illness of the Hon. \V. H. Dennis at Ot- tawa will be regretted by everyone. He did not want to go to the capital at this time, and only a deep sense of duty. and at the personal solicita- tion of the Premier, did he make one of the de- putation to interview the Federal powcrs-that-bc. on youth training.

4- w w w

Arrivals of certified seed potatoes to Argen- tina this season to the middle of December have reached a total of 242,949 crates of 110 pounds each, as compared with 602,133 crates for the corresponding period of 1937. The Department of Trade and Commerce is advised that arrivals from Canada amounted to 90,651 crates as com- pared with 303,806 in I937. Denmark has been the principal supplier while quantities have come

‘ v

on the “substance” of the Bren contract. Also, there will be wonderment over the failure 0f the report to say anything, good, bad or indifferent. about the stock transactions and financial set-

up of the Inglis Company. Finally, it will be. argued that it ought not to have taken so much -timc——aud public money-to arrive at a recom-

mcndation that could have been made (it had actually been made two years ago) without an

‘investigation at all.

Nevertheless there is a. gain. Hereafter (the Government having decided to accept the re-

‘couunctidation of a Defense Purchasing Com-

mission) war contracts will be made by a board of business men and others whose experience

'will permit them to know what war contracts

are about. \Ve shall not again have the spectacle of those chiefly responsible to the public for a

large war contract admitting after the contract

has been made that they do not know (except in a. vague, general way) what the contract con- tains. As a consequence, there will be less likeli- hood of public dissatisfaction, of public doubt and suspicion—things which, at this stage of our rearmament story cannot safely exist. __..__________.

Chicks By Airplane

Flying from Port Washington, New York, to Bermuda the other day, the Imperial flying-boat -“Cavalier" had aboard a consignment of 10o live day-old chicks in special cardboard containers, dispatched from United States hatcheries to a poultry-breeder in Bermuda.

_'I‘his consignment was sent by flying-boat in order to avoid difficulties and a risk of loss which may arise when live chicks are dispatch- ed by surface transport. ‘

Thanks to the speed of their 800 miles air crossing, the chicks were actually delivered in Bermuda within 24 hours of leaving their hatch- cries in the United States; whereas it is cal- culated that if they had gone by steamer they would have been at least 60 or 70 hours in transit.

These chicks were evidently good air travel- lers. as they were reported to have been chirping lustily when brought ashore by tender at Hamil- ton, Bermuda; while after a closer examination it was found that not one of them had died while en route.

It is explained that the chicks thus air-borne are to be used in Bermuda for breeding pur- poses, and that if the experiment, proves suc- cessful—-as there is every indication will be the case-it is probable that air cargoes will be found to include further consignments of live chicks.

Housing Act Loans

National Housing _Act loans for the month of December 1938, totalled $1,241,374, and pro- vided housing accommodation for 377 families, according to figures released recently by the Honorable Charles A. Dunning, Minister Fin- ance. This brings the total of all loans approved under the National Housing Act and its pre- ‘decessor, the Dominion Housing Act, to $27,- 678,002, and the total numberof family hous- ing units to 7,132 as at December 3r, 1938. "It "iaapparent," said Mr. Dunning, "that the-amend- ed Act is prorlucingtheresults we had hoped for. During the last four months of 1938 which

, In of course unfavorable building months, new

leans approved aggregated $5,491,000. There is

_ pow every indication of a very large increase in

Illeivoiume (if lending activity during 1939." ~ Loans were made in eight. new communities during the month, bringing the list of niuni

via and Germany. I

been the means of erecting; and his memory will

Ont., expresses concern regarding the growing number of youths among transients passing

from the United States, Holland, Esthonia, Lat-

I‘!

By the death of Mr. Henry Lowe the city loses one of its best known and highly respected cit- izen. Until his recent illness Mr. Lowe enjoyed the best of health, and was out-and-about as active as one ‘half his ninety years. As has been said of a distinguished predecessor in London. his monument is in the public buildings he has

long be cherished by his sorrowing widow and family, as well as the community at large. it is not given to many to attain his great age, and to fewer still to enjoy matrimonial bliss for the long period of sixty-two years. w a n- 4-

Chief of Police Fred Seymour, of Cornwall,

through that city. Of 4,287 transients given lodging in the police cells during 1938, exceed- ing last year's all-time high by 870, at least fifty per cent were reported by Chief Seymour to be in their twenties or younger. He said police had found little inclination on the part of transients to seek employment, and the younger men, par- ticularly, were found both discouraged and dis- interested. Chief Seymour thinks this attitude might have a bearing upon the growing number of petty criminal offences throughout the pro- vince, a a n c In a sweeping attack on the entire jury selec- tion system in Brooklyn, the extraordinary grand jury investigating charges of officialcorruption and the administration of justice in that borough handed up nine indictments charging nine" mem- bers of the current Kings County grand jury panel with perjury in swearing falsely that they had no criminal records. Asserting that one of the defendants even was recommended for grand jury duty by District Attorney William F. X. Geoghan of Brooklyn, Special Prosecutor john Harlan Amen characterized the situation as “shocking” and depicted an almost unbelievable condition of convicted criminals being in a posi- tion to rule on the merits of criminal evidence presented before them as grand jurors and also to “pass on to their associates the secret delibera- tions of the grand jury and thus permit prospec- tive defendants to flce the jurisdiction before their indictment.” - n- o a In London, where attention is, again drawn to the Magna Charta of 12f 5 and subsequent corelated acts of Parliament, interpretations of historians are also offered. Thus Commander Oliver Locker-Lampson, M.P., writes in The Observer, quoting Macaulay: “Some of us, who lament the recent recrudescence of persecution in Germany, would like to express our feelings effectively. But a casual perusal of Macaulay enables me to find comments more telling than any I, or better men, might utter. ‘Nothing,’ says Macaulay, ‘is so offensive to a man who knows anything of history or of human nature as to hear those who exercise the powers of gov- ernment accuse any sect of foreign attachments. If there be any proposition universally true in politics it is this, that foreign attachments are the fruits of mlsrule. It has always been the trick of bigots to make their subjects miserable at home and then to complain that they look for relief abroad.‘ And Macaualy added that Christ bade us love our neighbors as ourselves, and, when asked to explain what He meant by neigh-

borspselectetlas an example a heretlc and in F

- THE

llilTES BY" Til!"

-ip

-‘ A I WAY‘ - \

him backward. We have a fellow- feellng for that goldfish. Thll It. seems to us, is full of between the pull of the uah of '

IYI ll‘ i: where m their ‘mo: pgtiuiiuizii; Yflfk World-‘Ielegram.

No loyal Commission ever ap- pointed in these days, which comes along with a r t recommend- ing higher taxation for the general public, or ‘part of the public, ts worth its e t. What the country requires ls some commission - slack and alas, our hopes are dim about the derelict Rowell Coni- mission or near derelict-that will show the way to ease the financial strain on the taxpayer. and make it possible for Midgets a ain to be balanced, with a we -planried progressive set-up to reduce the public lebt. Less spending and less taxation should be the only objec- tives worthy of any consideration, for business, industry and the in- dhéltlllfll. —St,. Cathartries Stand- ar .

The most serious Injustice in the proposal (to increase the Ontario gasoline tax) arises from the complete failure of the Chevrler commission to recognize a very lmlpprtant fact, namely, that mo- tor ts all these years have been for debt retirement and the money has been used for other- urposes. Expressed in plalnest nguage possible, the situation is that mo- torlsts of the province —and tour- lsts-have contributed in gas wt and license fess enough to pay the whole cost of highway con- struction and maintenance, but the government borrowed all the money for construction and spent the motor revenue otherwise. Now the Chevrler commission says it

ls time to begin to pay off the debt accumulated through this policy; that 1t. ls for motorists

alone. as distinct from the gen- eral ublic, to provide the money, and hat they ought to pay a 50 percent, higher gasoline tax to make good what; the Hepburn government and its predecessors misappropriated. Having paid once, they are now. according to this recommendation, to be asked to pa again for the same thing, wlh accumulated interest! The proposal ls one which might well e appraised by the standard it ft ls not too oldfashioned — of common honesty. - Woodstock Sentinel-Review.

With four million pounds of butter being distributed to the or and needy each year at less an hal-f the ordinary retail prices, the Government's State- nlded butter scheme ts proving lt- self one of the most popular and useful of social welfare services. Distribution ls constantly growing, and only financial ltmltatolns re- strict its scope. It is probable that the Government may decide to ex- tend the scope of the scheme ln the near future, because of the grow- ing demand for State-aided butter. This butler, the ordinary-articles sold in retail stores and dairies. is sold under the scheme at 6d. 50., and 4115x801‘ lb. for the first, eec nd and d grades respectively. were it. notfor the scheme, this butter would have been exported oversea. and the difference be- tween the oversea price and the amount paid under the scheme ls provided by the Government in the form of a subsidy. The butter ls sold to needy persons either through the Heslm De- partments of municipalities, or through specially appointed dis- trlbution COUIIIIHDBCS, or through selected charitable organizations. In October, 1934-6, 58,000 lbs. of butter was distributed under the scheme. In October, 1937, the figure had grown to 807,800 lbs. while last month it reached the record aggregate of 399,200 lbs. An average of 151,000 gallons of milk is being distributed to school- children r month as well. south Afr can News Letter.

Compare the money spent on colonization with that swallowed up by direct relief. 1n the first case, we have at least. results which promise to be durable. However that may be, we have diminished by so many the number of months to be filled and increased the num- ber of reducers and consumers. Is not fins the Obieciive whim economists and sociologists ask public authority to carry out, be- cause 1n attaining it they succeed in improving the condition of so- ciety tn general at the same time. Colonization pursued methodically and with discretion is a marvellous regulator of the economic life of a nation. Arid there will be little excuse for us in Canada not w ursue it here where there are ense areas of fertile land awaiting only the wlll to labor to bring forth abundant crops. --l-e Press. Montreal.

One striking exnmllle of the in- eptness of overnmenta tn certain fields ts to e found in the rall- way uestlon. In the United States an we as in Canada the railroads have suffered from prolonged de- pression. Not only have highways. with automobiles and trucks, com~ peted dlssstroualy with the rall- ways but various regulation 1m- posed by tlb State and labor organizations may W911 8i" i313 death blow to the "stricken Iilnr. Still further legislative projects wlll noon be advanced in an nt- tempt ho put on its feet. e method of locomotion still indispensable for heavy transport. Now. a flr u we are concerned J-heleu the State interferes 1n relltwlv mat»- ters. the better. Not even flxlng rates for trucks and other vehicles will remedy the situation. It would be better to let nature alone to find her own cure. It is I Ewin- lon of Nature that lndlvfdua and individual enterprises must them- selves work out their own salva-

alien."

gcnnitnmrrmovijw GUARDIAN

T00 MUCH EXPI-IB~

EAB-ING SION ON OUR FACE-B

"You Americana wear too much expression on our faces. You are living with your reserves in action," said a Scotch physician, Dr. Clouater visiting this coun-

try.

I am quoting William James in Readers Digest.

I believe the thought that we are living with all our reserves tn action-using up the nervous and physical energy of our future years-should make us stop for a moment and think. A newspaper feature in which the inquiring re- porter asks various people of all walks of life about their ideas and thoughts recently asked the ques- tion “What worries you most?" The answers from intelligent hu- man beings, some of whom were ashamed and others amused at: their ‘worries, showed that often the most unimportant things were causing them daily worry.

In other words, these normal. intelligent people were worrying —-uslng up their stored nervous energy-about things that were mostly unimportant.

Most visitors to Great Britain notice a calmer, ‘smoother’ ex- presslon on the faces there. which I have always attributed to their habit of eating more meals (not more food) than those 1n the United States or Canada. I felt that the contented’ expression was due to a satisfied or contented

stomach. However, William James tells us that the duller counten- ances of the British people be- token a better ‘scheme of life’ — they suggest stores of reserved nervous force to fall back upon 1f the occasion should require it.

This unexcltablllty I re ard as the greatest safeguard of he British peo 1e." His advice to us ls, "You real y ought to somehow tone your- selves down. You take too intensely the trivial moments of life."

The fact; that so many of us do wear ‘too much expression‘ on our fwces ls due to that contlnous ten- ptori we have allowed to develop n

us.

It is only tan true that in these days all of us must be ‘up on our toes’ 1n the battle of life. but there is no need to be up on our toes about the small or trivial things of life. This tchseness or worry about small things ls using

up the reserve forces we may need to face the big things of life. Parliamentary Control

(Ottawa Journal)

Vifhst. nonsense is that about Canadian troops not being per- mitted to leave Oamde. without the authority of Parliament? A news despatch says the C. C. l". party la to bring the matter be- ore the Commons; We are not: aware that Canadian troops have ever left Canada with- out the authority of Parliament. They didn't do tt in the Great War. They won't do it in the next war. They didn't, and won't. be- cause the thing ls impossible. Why impossible? Simply because troops can't leave Canada without money to pay for their transport —nnd Parliament votes the money. There's 1m appalling lot of nonsmee talked about Parliament and war. We are told from time to time in the most pompous, sonor- one language tlhat "Parliament must decide." The thing matters about as much as if one said "the grass ls ween." Of course Parliament must. de- clde. It must, vote war supplies. If it doesn't vote supplies. that's the end of tt. We either don't go to at- tack the enemy, or we refuse to defend ourselves if the enemy at- us. In either case, whether the decision be for war, or against war, for surrender (in ease of ot- tack). the decision ls Parliament‘.

This doesn't mean that, tn the event of a war in which Great Britain would be involved the gov- ernment of the. day tn Canada wouldn't have to come to Parlia- ment with a war policy. A policy by which it must. stand or fall. What it does mean, though. is that this talk we hear from time to time about “leavtni! l-h-e decision of peace or war to Parliament," with he implication that this moans some great democratic gain. or some vast emancipation from Downing Street. is what our Am- erican friends call “hooeyfi

In the next world war. if one comes. there wlll be little likelihood 0f n lar e Canadian expedtVonary force gong to Europe, All who have followed expert military Opin- ion, plus the frequentlv expressed views of the British Government. reallm that; and, accordingly talk about conscription '11 the old sense ls just ignorant talk. Our role in the next war wlll be entirely dif- {erent from what it was in the