States WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 1959. _ PAGE 4 Counting The Votes. _ Mr. Diefenbaker recently hinted that he favors a faster method of re- cording votes in the House of Com- mons than is now used. He would ap- parently do away with the present system where each member stands in his place, has his name called, and ‘indicates by his “Yea” or “Nay” where he stands on the issue before the House. The clerk makes a tick opposite his name and, when every- one has voted, makes his tally which he passes to Mr. Speaker who then - announces the result. The Prime Minister would replace this by a method similar to that used in India wHere each member, by pull- ing a lever and pressing a button in front of him, transmits his vote to an electronic computer which comes up with the total vote ina minute or two, instead of the 15 or 20 minutes by the present method. Mr. Diefenbaker believes that modern electronic methods of vote- recording “derogate nothing from the dignity of Parliament,” while valu- _ able time could be saved—time that could be used to give fuller consider- ation to matters of greater conse- quence. It seems a logical reason, and we doubt if there will be any great objection to the proposal. But the Winnipeg Free Press bewails it in ha ing terms. “No longer,” says our Winnipeg contemporary, “would the galleries be able to marvel at the prodigious fea¥of memory of the clerk as he in- tenes the names of each member with never a mistake. No longer would each member be forced to stand up and be counted on an issue. _No longer would the members across ‘the floor have the opportunity of casting barbed remarks at a member who, having spoken against a meas-. ure, stands and votes obediently along party lines. All of this would be lost if a “member could sneakily record his vote by whispering elec- tronically into a computing machine. Cumbersome and slow as the present method may be, it is nonetheless.a colorful ritual that Parliament would be the poorer without.” ‘Such an appeal ‘almost persuades - us. But we are in the age of automa- tion, whether we like it or not. The newspapers did away with the old Town Crier—that most colorful per- sonality in every community—and some Gay, doubtless, we shall have televised b sheets replacing the papers of today. So if Mr. Diefenba- “er is really considering the new method of vote-recording in Parlia- ment, we doubt that he will be deter- red by any romantic considerations. Sic Transit! Time moves fast for politicians. It is only four years since the big summit conference at. Geneva, but President Eisenhower is the onl 1955 government head still in oftiek and his administration is to eid next ' .year. Britain’s Sir Anthony Eden has, of course, retired, and his former secretary, Harold Macmillan, js prime minister. France’s Edgar Faure has long since gone the way of French premiers, and President Charles de Gaulle wields the real power in France. Marshal Nikolai Bulganin has gone to oblivion and his job as Soviet prime minister has gone to the man who was the real Russian boss at Geneva four years ago, Nikita Khrushchev. West Germany, which had only regained its sovereignty in May, 1955, has risen to be a power to be reckoned with in East-West negotia- tions this year. Its government is still headed by the adamant Chaneel- Konrad Adenauer, but he, to, has put himself in a “lame duck” position by announcing that he will resign to take the ceremonial] post of president in West Germany in September. His successor has not yet been named. - In the ranks of foreign ministers there has been a clean sweep since they last met in 1955. Most recent and perhaps most significant, the ', United States swore in a new sec- retary of state, Christian Herter, “following the resignation of cancer- © _ ‘gtricken John Foster Dulles. Britain . _ is now represented by Foreign Min- é ‘ister Selwyn Lloyd, who was former-. ae ly No. 2 man in the ministry under Harold Macmillan. Antoine of France is out, and his place has by Foreign Minister Heinrich von |Bretano, but he willbe more or less on the sidelines at the conference as try’s future. ; Russia will be represented at the ‘ministerial level by Andrei Gromyko, but he is expected to have no free- dom to negotiate without ‘detailed direcien from Khrushchev. He can- not, however, be less flexible than the dour old Bolshevik V.M. Molotov, - whose negative attitude wrecked the last foreign ministers’ conference. Molotov is now in virtual exile as am- bassador to Outer Mongolia, although he has been reported in Moscow from time to time. “Sic transit gloria mundi.” To | which might be added the hope that time's changes will be for the better at Geneva this month—and this sum- mer if the proposed summit confer- ence is held. At any rate there will be new actors on the stage, some new promptors behind the scenes, and perhaps some new and better lines writter into the script.~ Wiser Second Thoughts The United States has finally -agreed to lift import restrictions on Canadian oil. The news is welcomed, even though no immediate boom in Canadian oil shipments to the U.S. is anticipated. Saskatchewan producers “are looking forward to making larger shipments to refineries in the St. Panl area, while on the West Coast the chances of two big refineries closing a deal with Canadian produc- ers will be enhanced. The real value of the change may . be psychological. The quotas were imposed on the ground that the de- fense of the United States needed them—that she must diminish her dependence upon oil from other sources. This was a disturbing development in trade relations with our neighbor, because what could happen .to oil colud happen to other products. The inconsistency of the defence argument was re- peatedly pointed out in the United States as well as in Canada. As one American paper, the Seattle Times, put it: “Canada and the United Sta- tes have joined their fortunes in planning for continental defence. Any governmental curtailment of an arrangement that allows one country to meet the other’s needs is bad ec- onomics and even worse logistics.” In removing these restrictions Washington has taken a new look at our economic inter-relations, and act- ed on wiser second thoughts. This is- the way friendly powers resolve their differences, and grow in understand- ing of each other’s viewpoints and problems. ‘EDITORIAL NOTES, Perhaps it was just an ironica, sels through the new St. Lawrencc Seaway docked at Detroit to unload 60 Ford cars made@in England. - oe, * ' President Eisenhower has pro- claimed May 22 as National Mari- time Day. The day marks the depart- ure from Savannah, Ga. on May 22, ~-1819, of the “Savannah” on its first trdns-oceanic voyage by any steam-, ship. 7 * * Prime Minister Nehru wants to keep on-good terms with China’s ‘Communist Government and at the same time keep his sympathy with the Tibetan rebels. It’s a fine tric if he can manage it. Reports from Peiping, however, would indicate that his chances are pretty slim. * * * eptide winners for 1958? One guess ought to do. The Communist organ ‘Tass’ announced the, big news on May Day—none other than Mr. Khrushchev, whose “activities in fa- vour of peace personified most fully and strikingly the peaceable policy of the Soviet socialist state,” etc., etc. The Lenin prizes carry.cash awards - valued \at $35,000. * * * Considering that a general elec- tion has to be held sometime with- in the next year, the British Con- servative Government has done either a courageous or foolhardy thing. They have refused to raise old age pensions, despite Labour’s claims that they are not high enough. A spokesman for the Government ‘said that the Labour criticism was “an assignment with an_ election” as, of course, it is and probably one that will improve Labour’s chances. - the Big Four powers debate his coun- be ‘ coincidence; but one of the first ves- - Who headed the Lenin \peace Wis ' THE BIG EAST-WEST GAME ~ ; ] “OTTAWA REPORT “As you read this, immégrants will be lining up at charity scup kitchens for their one meal of the day—in a lard where the very idea of a Welfare Sidte has not even been born.” This was the opening of an ar- icle, splashed in a foreign news- which has just come into . describing the ‘‘alarm- * in a certain country, “grim facts” reported gake8E rid ra “ a g = z ree food is so acute stock of vegetables laid in for its soup has completely disappeared. So ‘‘this is a state of emergency”’. 43 z jobless men. reds of destitute in one city are men eombing the garbage cans for food leftovers and begging 2 night's lodging on the bare floors of mission buildings. “In this desperate situation, welfare agencies are overwhelm- ed by the tide of misery.’ Police cells are jammed every night with wandering” job-seckers, . be- cause missions have no room for And so tale went on. DID YOU SEE IT : In case you have not recogniz- ed this faithful pen-portrait of ‘your homeland, let me break # to you gently that this is an ac- count of Canada today, recently. published in the mass-<irulatior British Sunday newspaper, “The People’, and said to have beer written by a Canadian journalis employed in Toronto, The theme is to discourage Britons from em- igrating to “this land of broken as a typical immigrant from Bri grated man,with a family of Can adian children, raised this mat- ter in our House of Commons last week. “I- am very concerned,” said Mr. H.W. The majestic city of Venice, once the dominant seapower in the Mediterranean, faces a dim present and an even darker fu- ture. The problem of the present is that‘ the city’s population is dwindling because of a lack of occupation for its youth. The young people are drifting steadily toward the new industrial areas being set up on the mainla nearby. It is beliéved that this chall- enge can be met by programs installed by the city itself. But the long-range problem, which makes all current difficulties seem small, is one the city does not hope to meot. According tc Torquato Rossini, canal engineer of Venice, “nor even the United States Treasury” can save Venice from what seems to be a cer- tain, poetically tragic fate. WATERS RISING ; Venice is sinking back into the sea from which the,city was dredged. Or, perhaps truer, the waters which brought forth Ven- ice are rising, as the world’s tem- perature rises and melting ice caps ‘and glaciers contribute to the depth and breadth of the oceéns. : Venice is sinking at the rate of 8.5 inches a century. In many have been raised until the ceil- ings are only seven feet high where once they were 10 feet. Stairs which once led down from - palaces to gondolas are now un- der water, and the sea sloches into many entrances. The canals are still three ‘or four feet below street levels, but < J Unfaithful Pen-Portrait By Patrick Nicholson , | came to Canada in 1906, the same F. member from Kootenay West, “About these newspaper articles with respect to conditions in Can- ada, supplemented bv pictures ta- ken, I believe, in 1955. Wou'd the Minister of Citizenship and Im- migration inform the House of. the stems being taken to correct the false impressicn of conditions in Canada created by these ar- ticles?"’ * London - born Bert Herridge year—as another Britisher who now, after a distinguished ca- reer in the R.C.M.-P. and the Can- adian Army, represents our de- fence forces in the federal Ca- bine-—the Hon. George Pearkes. I don’t think that either the so- cialist M.P., who is probably near- er being a millionaire than des- say that they make it clear to would-be immigrants that there is a shortage of jobs in Canada. This worker had no job fixed up before he came here, and he ad- mits that he knew there was se- vere unemployment here. His wie adds “it is true we were not exactly encouraged by the Im- | migration officials.” | Thus the emphasis on the un- | usual. ‘It is of course a precept of journalism that it is only news when Man bites Dog—or alas Ly an immigrant is dissatis- ed. : OUR YESTERDAYS | (From the Guardian Files) TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO (May—6, 1934) - On Saturday afternoon, the oc- casion of their twenty-fifth wed- | | A.J. Houle were at- home to {more than one hundred callers. Assisting in serving the guests titute in this land of opportunity or the much decorated war héro who is a Conservative Minister. - |combs the garbage for food left- overs. And both of them woul’ equally deplore the gross lie tha‘ “the very idea of a Welfare Statc has not even been born” in Can- ada, where all benefits are paid on a very much more generous scale then in Britain. : WELFARE CANADA For example, our old age pen- | Matheson, who was articled with | sion is $55 per month; in D it is $5.50 a week; cur family allowances rise to $8 per child per month, while in Britain, it is 70 cents per week for each child other than the first. There has alas certainly been unemployment on a severe scale here, in the recession which is now lessening. But even so, an immigrant during his first twelve months here can obtain welfare payments for himself and his | dependents from the federal gov- } | | ernment, if in need, Last year. 124,851, immigrants came to Can- | ada; at the end of April, only 313. tain, namely a happy, wellinte | “Bert” Herridge, C.C. | immigration officials Sinking Into The Sea Montreal Gazette high tides several times a year | Venetian houses the ground floors | promises’’. icf them, One NewCanadian, whom | | happen to know very intimatel: | including 194 deperif- ents, were drawing that benefit. Does that sound like a tide of | misery? This attack on Canada eviden- | tly started from the case of a | letter written to the queen, by ithe wife of’ an immigrant whose | job at Avro was lost when. the | Arrow was in Britain | sent water two feet deep into into St. Mark’s itself. OTHER ISLANDS Eraclea, the island where the first Venetian doge was elected in 697, has disappeared under he waters of the Adriatic. Se has the island of Equilio. . Eight and one-half inches a cen- tury does not seom a pressing problem, but most of Venice's buildings are several centuries old; they have already lost that amount of height each century. Wocden doors are rotting, walls are cracking, stucco falling. — Eugenio Miozzi, a retired cit; of Venice engineer; says sadly. “She seems determined to die in her sea. There is nothing that can be done about it.” . Canadian | the Plaza of St. Mark’s and even | were Mrs. C.C. Archibald, Miss | Henry, Miss Florence MatLeod, |and Mrs. C.R. Harper. Miss | | Hilda Harper and Miss Carruth- |ers ushered the guests to the | | dining room. Mrs. J.A. McNair | | presided at the piano. | Mr. Alexander. W. Matheson, barrister and attorney, is today | | opening his office on Richmond | Street in the Cameron Block. Mr. | | Mr. R.N. MacNeill, K.C. was ad- | mitted to the Bar at the June | sitting of the Supreme Court in | 1933 TEN YEARS AGO | (May 6, 1949) Thé Maritime Electric ‘Com - pany agreed yesterday to sub it to the Public Utilities Board an | “interim” electric power rate for | summer cottages, and commer- | cial cabins and hotels,” such a | rate to be used by the Board purely for information purposes, | and without prejudice to the Company's further submission re- | garding general rates. | ‘This week matked the opening |of the Provincial Government's | $70,000 central bait freezing and | storage plant on Esher Street. In | operation for the past two days, the plant is working at full ca- | pacity handling about 40,000 | pounds of herring bait per day. It ts expected to put in about | 900,000 pounds before the end of the season. rem Fire - Auto - Casualty : Marine - | 6.6. K. PEAKE . LTB - 78 Great George St. Dial 411 ” | AMAZING MA OWAX See A Spill on it! AERQWAX os Seuff it! 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