we an ï¬wtaam Elli Barrie Examiner Published by Canadian Newspapers Company Limited l6 Bayfield Street Barrie Ontario Robb PublisherGeneral Manager Walls Editor Emhua DM Hensliaw Managing Editor 4Thtae Examiner Thursday Oct 28 1976 political decision on the cultural centre Politicians are often accused of being more interested in providing bread and circuses for people than solutions to real problems Well what is the poor politician supposed to do He just gives the people what they want One of the burning issues in Bar rie right now is whether Halloween should be held on Saturday or Sun day Now that is important stuff up there in importance with the ques tion of whether Elizabth Taylor and Richard Burton are going to do their marriage act again Several letters have been re ceived by The Examiner making statements about the Halloween problem and not one letter ad dresses itself to the question of whether small children should be encouraged to beg at strangers doors of items of questionable nutri tional value City council donates funds to sports orgnization for beer hall Nary word from the taxpayers who can be counted on to scream loudly should anyone suggest money be spent to improve their minds on cultural centre for ex ample So what can the politicians do Well they can give earnest con sideration to the question of when Halloween should be and donate money for the Flyers to Major Hoo ples Owls Club And they can turn down with ex pressions of great restraints re quests for funds for cultural cen tre They can do this because they can do this because they are sure in the knowledge that Canadians are practical people downtoearth types who recognize that the ar tistic and literary pretensions of pale tubercular ladies and gentlemen are of interest only to limited fewthe momentous question of Halloween has been settled with display od diplomacy that must have Henry Kissinger watching his rear beer is assured for hockey fans and all is right with the world The politicians have done their duty they have reflected the pre judices of their constituents and avoided taking stand or showing leadership Democracy is once again safe the corporation of the City of Barrie has made its decision The barbarians are not at our gates they are within the city and they are us DOWN MEMORY LANE FROM NORTHERN ADVANCE Aided in 1872 by recent Free Schools Act of Ontario Barrie Board of Public School Trustees planned to erect sixroom school at northwest corner Collier and Owen Sts The cornerstone of this Barrie Com mon School was laid on May by Rev Dr Egerton Ryerson Chief Superintendent and father of provincial school system This school now site Barrie post office became known as Central later Victoria when second public school was built on Bradford St West Ward in 1872 later Prince of WaleSi In 1882 Central was swept by fire but was rebuilt If tales could be told of the old school they would involve winter slides down slopes at rear of Trinity Anglican Church and residential windows broken by the big boy bullies during ball games One of YOUR BUSINESS How much more can UK take the historic figures of Central was James Marlin the principal whose firm but kindly friendly hand ruled for many years During early 30s the great depression was in full swing and lowrental apartments sprang up in Barrie downtown As result Central school became so crowded that for two years one class was quartered in King Block now Wilson Bldg But the hardtimes on the railroad then had reduced the enrolment at the Burton Ave school and the Board of Education solved the problem by rearranging the boundaries and Principle Bill Bill at King Edward inherited many bright scholars from closer to Bar rie side of bay In 1949 the old Central school building was sold to the federal government and plans were made for Codrington School first principal being Kenneth MacLennan Bylllll£i Business and onsumir ffaiisnalyst Thomson News Sery ice The oldest established per manent floating economic crisis in the world is to be found in Britain Its crisis that has knocked the stuffing out of the pound sterling which tell to record low of Just under $133 anadian the other day and transformed Britain from one of the wealthiest of the in dustrialized countries into one of the weakest during the lifetime of most of us For anadians its relevance goes far beyond the fact that the pounds downlall has made vacation in Britain much cheaper than ll would ilhtIWlSt Elie lBarrir Exziiiiiiiri 16 Bayfield Street Barrie Ontario Telephone 72545537 Registration Number 1481 Second Class Mail Return postage guaranteed Daily Sundays and Statutory Holidays excepted Subscription rates daily by carrier 85 cents weekly $4420 yearly Single copies 13 cents By Mail Barrie $4420 yearly Simcoe County $3400 yearly Balance of Canada $36 00 year iy National Advertising Offices 65 Queen St West Toronto 8641710 640 Yathcart St Mon treal Member of the anadian Press and Audit Bureau of Cir culations The Canadian Press is ex clusively entitled to the use for republication of all news dispatches in this paper credited to it or The Associated Press or Router and also the local news published therein The Barrie Examiner claims Copyright in all original adver tising and editorial material created by its employees and reproduced in this newspaper Co yrighl Registration Num r203815register61 have been Britain remains major trading partner of ours and its governmental administration remains modelvun fortunately to Canadian bureaucrats Admirable as the civil ser vants of Whitehall may be with their bowlers furled umbrellas and fashionably battered at tache cases they seem to have lemminglike impulse toward mass economic suicide Over the years as welfare state economic policies have led to ever greater predicamen ts for Conservative and Labor governments alike there has never been any admission or apparently suspicion that the policies might be unsuitable Instead the machinery con tinues to grind along exactly as before only more so BIGGER SHARES It isnt that the economic goals that British society has set for itself arent admirable more of everything from cradle to grave for everybody But in the search for better life the Britishlike our selvesrr may have overlooked the simple fact that wealth has to be created by human effort and not by stroke of legisla tors or bureaucrats pen In short the British havent been producing enough of the right things to pay for the stan dard of living they have set for themselves The managerial class hasnt been attracting nearly enough talented people partly because in the British class system managers are looked down upon as grubby while bureaucrats and academics are highly esteemed In the shops theres no short age of pop records trendy clothes candies and cigarettes But if Briton wants Brit ishmade car or other consumer durable the wait may be three to six monthsprovided there are no more strikes in the meantime of course The other day former prime minister 19571963 Harold Macmillan made dramatic proposal for coalition govern ment The current economic crisis he contended is beyond the ca pacity of either Tories or So cialists acting alone coalition saw Britain through the Second World War and in Mr Macmillans view is the only way to lift the economy out of its current slump Would the politicians and the people be willing to set aside the political distinctions which although blurred still exist be tween the two major parties And if they were would coalition of two groups succeed in generating the kind of deter mination that neither party alone has been able to inspire in the British iFROMPARLIAMENTHILL if Jean Marchand leaves Ottawa with remarkably few enemies Hy Slli lll laclllOli Ottawa liiireaii TlIUIIISOII News Sen ice llic entire country will prob ably beiieiit from the decision of Jean Marihand to quit led cral politics and ietiirii to One bec to fight separatists but we are going to miss llllll in it tawa There irint that many color ful Olllltlili left in the capital And during lll 11 years in it lawa lr Marchand was not only colorful he was also de lightlully unpredictable You could come across him in cor ridor when he looked like ban tam iooslil in battle The next moment he could be laughing uproarioiisly Then you could come across him as he turned on his lull Gallic charm and by comparison Mauricehevalier would appear course And then there were those un expected emotional outbursts and perhaps period of siilking He was study in contrasts while in Ottawa and after 11 years he leaves with remark ably tew enemies If he was iioi the most color fiil and dynamic member of the House said House Leader Al laii laclIachen he was cer tainly among the most colorful and dynamic No one is likely to disagree with that assess iiiciit It will be interesting to see what kind of impact Mr Mar chaiid makes in the current Quebec election campaign because with the exception of Jean Lesage there havent been many federal politicians who returned to provincial politics packing real clout And larti Oiicbecois Leader ltene Levesque has lost no time in trying to discredit Mr Mar cliaiid QUEENS PARK Standard exams have advantages Hy lO OIIILHiN Queens Park llltilll Thomson News Service IORONIO Despite the governments reversal of policy and pulling back core cur riculutn apparently the pres sure for change in education is going to be kept tip The Liberals of course are keeping on the heat But this was to be expected The Liberals haVe made educa tion their motherhood issue and in addition have brought out their first fully fleshedout pol icy posit ion on the question But variety of other nonpo Carter would send daughter to public school in capital WASHINGTON Reuteriwlf Jimmy Carter succeeds in be coming president his eight yearold daughter Amy will at tend 108yearold public ele mentary school in Washin ton with about 215 mostly blac or foreignborn pupils The school Thaddeaus Stev vens elementary was built in 1868 as the first public school for blacks in this capital city Before that black had been taught in homes and churches The White House Amys new home if her father wins the Nov election is about half mile from Stevens and falls within the neighborhood district served by the school Carter the Democratic presi dential candidate has said re peatedly that he will send his daughter to public school in Washington if he beats Presi dent Ford Washingtons schools are about 94percent black and have for long been rated low in scholarship standard compared to the national norm but of forts are being made to upgrade them Any who will be in the fourth grade has always attended public schools in Georgia in Plains the family home and in Atlanta when her father was governor of Georgia Stevens threestorey build ing of brick painted white with blue windowirim is on the frince of one of Washingtons commercial districts nestled between shops office buildings and apartments Few school age children live nearby and the schools popu lation is gradually decreasing more and more of the old homes in the area are razed to make way for commercial buildings Most of Stevens pupils are brought to school by their par ents many of whom either work in the area but live else where or are diplomats at the many embassies sited nearby Amy would be escorted to and from school by the Secret Servr ice agents assigned to guard licr CLASSES SMALL Stcvciis has grades from pre kindergarten through to the seventh and has seven classroom teachers many of whom teach classes composed of two grades because of the small number of pupils An eighth teacher is on the staff for general assignments In addition the school has counsellor librarian and special teacher of English for the younger foreignborn pupils Miss Lydia Williams who has been princi al the past 11 yearsis proud Stevens It has fine arts program which includes drama music and ballet And although it is an innercity school close to busy thoroughfare it is neatly landsca The iildreii do much of the gradening and Miss Williams is proud of the schools achieve ment this year in winning the mayors beautification award The Carters if they move HP to the White House will be the first occupants for many years with child of elementary school age Their other children are grown up The Fords have no children of elementary or secondary school age He just jumped off sinking ship says the Pt leader re ferring to the former federal minister as tired reircad There will be many more such comments before the cam paign ends but if Mr March and rises to his lull potential Mr Levesque wont win the battle without suffering sonic severe wounds In his native French the peppery little for iiier enviroiiincnl iniiiistcr can mount dcvasiing assault and with his fierce laitli in icilcr alisin lie is likely to be the most effective campaigner for na tional unity And incidentally this is why he came to Ottawa lle along with Prime Minister lnideau and tierard lelletier anguished for months about how Frenchtanadians could best achieve their full potenlual in tonlederation And they decided Ottawa was where the litical groups including even the Ontario hamber of om mercc which has been beconr ing quite publicly alive recen tly have been saying that much more must be done EXAMS BENEFIT The biggest push is for the rev iiistatemcnt of examinations particularly in Grade 13 One of the big objections which will be made to this will be bureaucratic that exam inations are just too cumber sonic And if we felt bound by the ast there certainly would be liit of truth in this For the old Grade 13 exam was hellishly awkward proce dure The exams were written all across the province in lune then few hundred teachers were assembled in Toronto to mark them and finally some time in August the results were seiitout Not only was this cumber some but there was very bad delay in university entrance in that neither students nor the universities could really act un til the results were out Willi the much greater uni versity population of today this old system probably would be impossible But this shouldnt rule out some form of standard exam ination For this has very definite ad vantages iie of these of course is that the student himself knows where he really stands And still another and possi bly the most valuable of all is that there can be comparison of the quality of education not only between boards but even between individual schools war would be won or lost All three joined the Liberal Party and entered the ommons in ism Now ironically Mr March and has returned to Quebec ityonthesaintcrusade int back in 1903 Mr March and was talking about the need for basic change in attitude by all aiiadians We must get to know each other better and eliminate misconceptions about oiiraspirations lNlS LOSS nd at that llllll lr Trudeau was confidently pre dieting that the Otiebec people would never send separatist to the provincial legislature llis prediction didnt stand up lor long and now the prune minister is losing his most trusted lieutenant because of fears that more separatists will beclccled This very serious problem of national unity is not going to be solved in lberta Mr Mill chaud said on his departure from Ottawa Its going to be solved in Quebec lypically he larliaiiieiit ill dcspondeiit mood And if he is worried about thestate of national unity he didnt show it He bounced around with the enthusiasm of boxer getting ready for the first round Having spciil most of his life in the rough and tum ble Quebec labor wars then having joined the national war against separatists Mr Mar cliaiid doesnt have butterflies in his stomach over his new bat tlefront Its jiisl tlial he thrives on causes and has this llnttillr lrollable drive to be in the cen ire of thcaction Considering his motives am sure most of us wish him well But it is going to seem odd around Ottawa not seeing that little gnome either shouting smilingor shrugging didnt leave THE PICK or PUNCH READER FORUM Big spenders at city hall Dear Sir It looks as though we have had succession of big spenders at city hall Although assessment has in creased 48 per cent and popula tion 29 per cent since 1971 ex penditures are more than dou ble and expenditures per capita are up whopping 64 per cent The Barrie annexation study hoists number of red flags concerning the dangers of overspending the era of more and more from general provin cial revenues has passed and new philosophy of less and less has arrived The municipality and therefore the individual taxpayer will undoubtedly be required to pay more and more directly for the services demanded My figures are from Barries official tax notices which show that in 1971 Ontarios contribu tion was one dollar per dollar of realty and business taxes im posed by the city In 1976 the provinces share was reduced to 91 per cent demonstrating the philosophy of less and less from provincial sources By 1981 the annexation report estimates that the citys debt will grow from $205 per capita in 1974 $6355000 to $485 per capita in 1981 $24250000 Debt charges will increase from $2842 per capita to $7694 up 171 per cent Education debt has been ex cluded from the estimate and debt of general nature has been deferred to 1986 after ex cept those projects whch are deemed to have been deben tured at the end of 1979 new city hall and new library are part of the deferrals We just escaped buying new city hall and now we need new airport What we dont need is big spenders in council in 1977 new council needs strong business direction and keen sense of economic priorities The major expansion planned for the Barrie area is part of design to take the population pressure off the metro Toronto area directly and off the pro vinceindirectly AGREEMENT The province must not expect the taxpayers of Barrie to assume the onerous respon sibility for multiplicity of ser vices beyond their normal needs unless there is an underlying definite agreement to ensure that Barrie taxpayers are not left holding the bag There has been some recent communication offering some support but just remember what governments often do to sharedcost arrangements In the absence of definite agreement and if the big spenders intend to disregard the constraints clearly enun ciated in the annexation report may the Lord help us Dont bet that the concept of market value assessment will reduce your taxes Unless it is indexed it will simply tax unrealized inflation in values putting more tax dollars in the hands of big spenders municipal and pro vincial Respectfully Nell Edmonstone Southern secondary would be poor name learSir Evidently Barrie needs new high school Certainly we are overcrowded at Eastview would like to make two sug gestions at this point First the new schools name should have nothing to do with the new schools position Barrie already has North entral and an Eastview it does not need Southern Furthermore the new high school should probably not take WE WANT YOUR OPINION Letters submitted for publication must be original copies signed by the writer Please include your street ad dress and phone number although they will not be published Letters which can not be authenticated by phone cannot be published For the sake of space public interest and good taste The Examiner reserves the right to edit con dense or reject letter CANADAS STORY Irving asleep like his character By BOB BOWMAN In 1789 Britain and Spain both claimed what now is Van couver Island Spanish naval squadron sailed into Nootka Sound and captured British ships which were there for the fur trade News of the attack did not reach London until 1790 but the British were so angry that they voted £2 million to send the Royal Navy under Admiral Black Dick Howe to attack Spain Spain could not afford war at the time and agreed to re store British property and pay reparations Under terms of the Nootka Convention signed Oct 28 1790 Britain and Spain agreed to share Vancouver Island equally For awhile it was called Quadra and Van couver Island In 1819 the United States bought Florida from Spain This meant all Spanish it Ive noticed you people are always slow in spotting my lack of prejudice the name of the street on which is will be situated Barries elementary schools have enough street names If the school board is having difficulty finding suitable historical figure to name the school after the trustees might try taking name out of the RR Tolkiens The Lord of the Rings Riverdell Collegiate would have Southern Secon dary beaten cold My second point is this there seems to be an architectural trend away from windows dont know why this is Also architects seem to have forgotten that bricks come in other colors besides dark brown If architects want to be original they might try putting few skylights and openable windows in the new school Pic ture windows might replace narrow slitlike windows hope that Southern Secon dary School windowless dark brown with noisy airfans blow ing continuously will never blight our city Yours truly JONATHAN MILLS territory west of the Mississippi and north of latitude 42 The American ambassador in Madrid at that time was Washington Irving the author of the character Rip Van Winkle who slept for 40 years Irving made study of Spam ish territory in North America but somehow missed the Nootka Convention so no men tion was made of Vancouver Island when the US bought Florida Otherwise the 08 might own half of Vancouver Island today So it might be charged that Irving was asleep like his char acter Rip Van Winkle It was strange oversight on Irvings part because he was greatly in terested in the fur trade in Can ada and wrote story about it He also was guest of the Bea ver Club in Montreal where the fur traders of the Northwest Company gathered OTHER CT 28 EVENTS iiiSiSome residents of Cape Breton emigrated to New Zea land Francis Hincks and Morin formed government ismQuebec Conference on Confederation ended ismSupreme Court ruled Manitoba Separate Schools Act to be unconstitutional l926Queen of Romania vis ited Ottawa HMOCPR liner Empress Britain was sunk by Germar bombers and submarines BIBLE He said unto them Have yo received the Holy Ghost Ilnce ye believed And they said unto him We have not so much as heard whether there be any Ho ly Ghost And when Paul had laid his hands upon them the Holy Ghost came on them and they spake with tongues and prophesied acts 1926 As at Ephesus many are receiving the baptism wi the Holy Ghost in manner un known to them and sometime preached as unavailable to them The promise is youDl