“hore News

BENE editorial pase I

A6 - Wednesday, December 23, 1981 -,

eg & % Fy H

Indestructible

The close of 1981 brings more. things for
more people to worry about than most year-
ends in the recent past. Abroad and at home
there are some heavy clouds over the
Christmas horizon.

Suffering Poland faces the threat of
Russian intervention which, at best, would
sharply increase East-West tensions and kill
hopes for any early nuclear detente. Israel's
seizure of the Golan Heights from Syria
jeopardizes the fragile Middle East peace
accord. Meanwhile, western industrial
nations, headed by the U.S. itself, are in the
grip of a major economic recession -- with
inflation destroying personal savings, in-
vestment lagging and unemployment
threatening added social problems.

In our own neck of the woods the subdued
pattern of Christmas shopping in local stores,
with their unprecedented mid-December
sales, is a direct reflection of these many
concems among ordinary citizens. That's the
bad news.

The good news, however, is still Christmas
itself and the fundamental message it brings.

Over the past two thousand years the
human race has suffered innumerable crises

.of war, brutality, famine, disease and
poverty. Eventually, each crisis has passed.
‘But humanity itself has always survived --
edging forward little by little over the
centuries towards better things.

In the end the spirit of millions of in-
dividual human beings has always proved
indestructible. And that, of course, is the
essence of Christ’s birthday message, with its
emphasis on love for mankind. and the
surpreme value of every individual member
of the human race.

Have no fear. Christmas will be around a
lot longer than our present crop of worries.

Warm thought

After baring all the facts and finally getting
down to the naked truth, North Vancouver
District council has decided Christmas is no
time to play Scrooge. So they're renewing
the annual lease of a parcel of District land in
Lynn Valley for $397 -- only a nominal in-
crease over last year.

It might be cold comfort to many in this
weather. But it’s a warming thought for the
tenants -- the Van Tan nadisi club.

Sabiday

news

narth shore

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— Ge a

THIS PAPER (IS REC YCL ABLE

olmeeweo

By MICHAEL WALKER

As every grade school
child knows, the world is
increasingly ruled by opinion
polls. This is no less true in
the world of business than in
the world of politics.

In the world of politics
polis are used to sample the
opinion of individuals on
what the pressing concerns
of the nation are and to
which areas the government
ought to address its attention
if it is to be seen to be “doing
something” about the issues
of the day. And, in this
regard, the pollster is quite a
powerful figure.

The pollster is the one
who frames the question and
often, of course, the frame
of the question can deter-

mine the responses.
Moreover, given the in-
tricacies of the statistical

methods used in arrriving at

the polls, the polister may
often be the only one who
understands the true im-

plications of the polis as s

taken.

Polisters who work ‘or the
government are gennerally
sent out to determine what

people want in the way of ©»

public policy goodies and
whether they would support
a government which offered
these goodies. And, of
course, governments in

power will often use trial
balloons or minor versions of
major proposed policies to
get a better feel for the likely
response to a full blown
program. Significantly, one

WALKER...“What does
it cost?”

of the aspects that is nor-
mally not included in such
polls is the cost of the
proposed item.

In the business community

polls are used most
frequently by firms to
discover whether or not a
particular product is viable
and whether or not it is
desired by the consumers to
whom business is trying to
appeal.

For example, a super-
market may conduct a poll
to discover whether or not
pre-cooked roast beef is a
desirable item in the mind of
the consumer. However, any
businessman worth his salt

would not stop at that stage.

Rather, he would go to the
second stage and ask, “Are
you sufficiently interested in

the product to buy it?” And,
of course, this generates the
natural subsidiary question,
“Would you buy such a
product if its price were X?”

From the point of view of
the businessman, the latter
two questions are the most
significant questions:
“Would you buy the
product?” and “Would you
pay the price at which the
product must be sold?”

In the case of the political
polisters, of course, price is
no object. Governments are
not in the business of of-
fering programs with the
associated tax bills, rather
the programs come first and
the tax bills come second --
in some cases quite a bit
second in terms of the order
of events. This, in part,
explains why it is that
government programs are so
popular at the time they are
adopted. But if, through
some fiscal reversal, the
government has had to raise
taxes to pay for the
programs, the favor of the
electorate is found to be
quite fickle.

Unfortunately, we can only
dream about the day when
our political leaders, like our
business leaders, begin to
look at programs in terms
both of their benefit to
specific groups of consumer-
voters — and of their cost.

(Dr. Walker is Director of
the Fraser Institute, a
Vancouver-based economic
think tank.)

Whycolumnists weep at Xmas

The week before Christmas can reduce even
the most hardened newspaper columnist to tears.

Not

tears of sentimentality.

Not tears of

remorse for all the vitriol that has impregnated his
typewriter ribbon during the year. Just tears of

utter despair.

For 51 weeks of the year
the columnist earns his keep
by persuading his readers
that they are being regaled
with new and meaningful
thinking on every topic
under the sun

But what on carth do you
write new about Chnstmas?

I mean, consider the odds
confronting the columnist

Newspapers in their more-
or-less modern form
emerged around 250 years
ago At any given Christmas
since then an average of at
least 4,000 English-language
newspapers must have been
publishing around the world
(today’s total 1s probably five
tames that figure)

So the annual challenge ts
to wnte something about
Christmas that a minumum
of one millon other writers
haven't already beaten you
lo

Thats why so many
columnists weep cvery time
the dreaded Yulctide week
approaches They koow
what's capected of them and
they know they cant deliver
Ihey know they havent a
single new idea to add

They sit at them Smith
Coronas around December
16. naked and ashamed

eee

Different columnists seck

different solutions cach
year
A few self

highly

disciplined scribblers write
their Christmas columns in
July. Lazang by the pool or
on the beach, t's) much
easicr to be healthily cynical
about Santa cynicism,
healthy or otherwise, being
the columaust’s food and
dnnk

By Chnstmas week, of
course, a sentimental editor
may well kill such a column
and subsitute reader Smith's
handwritten poem about The
Three Kings. But at least the
columnist has met his
deadline and can honorably
forget the whole thing for
another 12 months

Some columntsts arrange,
in desperation, to take their
vacations during December
Those who can't frequently
book in sick around
December {5 Esther way,
the editor reaches for his file
of readers’ letters on “The
Best) Chnstmas We Fver
Had” to fill the empty space
Probably heaving a sgh of
relic

Other
when

columnists admat

theyre beaten and
make a determined effort to
be nice to everybody. yust
for that oonc Christmas
edition

The result tends to come
across with all the siancenty
of a fox reading bedtime
stones an the henhouse The
leopard Gf youl pardon the

focus

Noel Wright

mized = metaphor) doesn't
change tts spots that cantly

Columnists do have onc
small consolavon however
Mveryone cise in the

Christmas business scemas to
share thet problem
Christmas
cxpreased sn
thought) since they were
invented If only people
wouldn't write in them they
could be recycled year after
year with nobody the Ariser
Christmas = store Ae,
blazon the same seductive
messages from one decade
to the neat) Santa goes on
weanng the same old outfit

cards haven't

singke new

he was born in and never
even has his beard trimmed.

Christmas trees never alter
their shape or color.
Neither, for that matter. do
reindcer, turkeys or plum
puddings. And how long ago
is it, pray, since someone
wrote a new carol?

The average domestic
ritual varies just as little
Christmas morning's chaos
of discarded giftwraps ht
tering the living room
Rising afternoon tension in
the kitchen. The digestion
testing family feast, followed
by debates on how to spend
the rest of the evening. And
on Boxing Day, the slhight
shock of realizing it's sud-
denly over and gonc for
another year (what on carth
was all the preliminary fuss
about?)

The only things genuincly
new cach Christmas are best

forgotten price labcls
Otherwise, Christmas
remains as familiar and

unchanging as your favorite
old sweater

As comfy and relaxing
too, once you've battled
your way through to the

25th And that. of course ts
sufficient to dove any scif
respecting columnist to
dnnak 1s frustrating cnough
to have nothing new to write
about Christmas But 1's the
last straw when you cant
even find anything bad to
write about it

Especially if
scribe youre
preparing to) Crypoy
minute of it

Have ai great
Christmas yourself!

fahe this
secretly
every

old