ee 6 - Friday, March 30, 1984 - North Shore News EE editorial page nner aE Why not try it? Lower ‘THEE VOSCE OF SEO8TTH AND WEST VANCOUVER sunday news north shore news ow justified is the ‘‘revolt’’ by North Shore and other. Mainland municipalities against the provincial government’s decision to have local police forces serve court documents? North and West municipalities claim this added task — hitherto performed by the sheriff service — will raise police costs by a total of up to $120,000 a year, because police salaries are higher than those of sheriffs. City Mayor Jack Loucks accuses Victoria of **developing restraint ... at the ex- pense of the municipalities’’. The heated protests, however, ig- nore the fact that costs at both gover- ment levels come out of the same tax- payer’s pocket. The new system, by sharply reducing sheriff costs, must obviously be cheaper overall because Display Advertising Classified Advertising Newsroom Circulation Subscriptions their Van reckons, Clerks, year. trying. 980-0511 986-6222 985-2131 986-1337 980-7081 1139 Lonsdaie Ave., North Vancouver, B.C. V7M 2H4 Publisher Peter Speck Associate Publisher Robert Graham Personnel Director Berni Hilliard Production Director Chris Johnson Editor-in-Chief Noel Wright Classified Manager Vai Stephenson Advertising Directar Tim Francis Circulation Director Bill McGown Photography Manager Terry Peters North Shore News, tounded in 1969 as an independent suburban newspaper and qualified under Schedule II|_ Paragraph lil of the Excise Tax Act, is published each Wednesday, Friday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press Ltd and distributed on Wednesdays and Sundays to every door on the North Shore and selectively on Fridays to businesses, real estate offices, vanous public locations, vendor boxes and newsstands Second Class Mail Registration Number 3885 Entire contents © 1984 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All rights reserved. Subscriptions, North and West Vancouver, $25 per year Mailing rates available on request No responsibilty accepted unsolicited maternal including manuscripts and pictures which should be accompanied by a stamped addressed envelope Member of the B.C. Press Council $4,700 (average. Wednesday & Sunday) 5,400 (F riday) for example, delivery workload in Oak Bay will average a mere three documents a week — hardly a big deal. Computers could presumably ease any added paper burden for police to review the [For the both city hall AND Victoria it could be a money-saving experiment worth it cuts out duplicated journeys in delivering documents. Police patrol cars cruise constantly throughout territories, have to make special trips over exact- ly the same routes. | Moreover, the public has yet to learn how municipalities have been estimated. Attorney General whereas sheriffs the extra costs to Brian -Smith that the minister has promised ew scheme after a payer who funds Praising the rope-cutter for rescuing his victim VERY YEAR, REVENUE CANADA gives out tax refunds to the Canadian taxpayers who have been forced to pay in more than they owe. In most years, the bulk of these refunds are distributed before the end of June. But in 1983, holdup in there was a the give-back, because special legislation had to be passed incor- porating tax changes from the budgets of November 1981 and June 1982. The new law was not p;roclaimed until March 30, 1983, holding up the tax refund process by about three months. As a result, an extra $1.7 billion dollars was put into the hands of the Canadian public in the late summer months of the third quarter. So much for the facts Now for the interpretation By WALTER BLOCK ILLUSORY ‘‘LIFT’’ One newspaper, in cover- ing this story, headlined its description ‘‘Tax Refunds giving economy lift.’’ Accor- ding to this view, real disposable income rose in the third quarter by 11% at an annual rate due to govern- ment largesse in returning to taxpayers money they never should have had to pay in the first place. At the very least, such an interpretation places matters on a slant. For had the government not overly taxed the Canadian citizenry initial- ly, 1% wouldn’t have had the money to refund, and thus to ‘‘give the economy its lift.’’ The economy would have been ‘‘lifted’’ all along. Rather than saying the government ‘‘lifted’’ the economy in the third quarter, it would be more accurate to say that government first plunged the economy into a recession through its im- properly high tax take, and then, later, put the economy back at the level it would have been at, but for the intervention. But the economy may never reach the path it Would otherwise have taken, for those few months of lost pur- chasing power will have reverberations that last for a long time. FALSE RESCUE This point may be express- ed in another way. Inter- preting this bureaucratic snaffu as government aid to the economy is like the case of the man who first cuts the rope which supports the trapeze artist, and then places a net under the man as he is falling toward his death. Can we really credit the rope-cutter for saving the life of the aerialist? Or should we rather say that the rescue would not have been necessary, were the rope not cut in the first place? (Dr. Block ts Senior Economist with the Fraser Institute). “ i mailbox bD< Dinosaur club is not for him Billions thrown Dear Editor Hello, Doug Collins, you dinosaur! This is the definition you gave to your kind of people in the News of March 16 How correct! Join the dinosaur club and restore the Impenal System of Measurcments to its old impernahstc glory! No, Doug, thanks, I don't want to be extinct Ike the dinosaurs who could not adapt to changing conditions You have difficulties with temporatures ino Celsius degrees? God bless your in Nexible brain You sce, | made a test after reading your column and asked a 22 year old "AL what temperature docs the water boil?’ “AL 1007 was the reply He did not even bother to add ‘‘C elstus’’ This lad learned Imperial in school up to grade 10 and then switched to S| 1 questioned further “No, | want to know iat in Fahrenheiw’’. He could not tcll me, but took a calculator and found i would be 212? ft You see, Doug, the world is changing, and your dinosaur club makes i more difficult, but cannot prevent the change to a much better, infinitely more logical, and by far more efficient system of measurements The metric Deplores egg race waste system is used right now tn most of the world And if you talk about the United States, cead the National Geographic Magazine issucd in Washington, D CC | a thoroughly American publication all Measurements ate metyic with oimpenal oon brackets, gust for the dinosaurs Thas is not a pessonal of ferme to you | agree with Hear bE ditor tread about the Gaecat Egg Scram ble to be held on the 21st of Aprnil at the Arts, Sciences & Technology Centre, 600 Caanville St The object of the race ts to transport a raw cee as far as possible without breaking Wo Over a TS metre course using only rubber bands, cte. tyntry fee $3 00 It as hard to behheve that such wastfulness of food goes on here in © anada and all for Powas upsct when | your columns on occasion, but I for one don’t want to be a dinosaur | have absolutcly no difficulty in buying a kilogram of meat or a litre of milk And do you know that this litre of mulk weighs just about one kg? TE Tf at were water. it would be exactly one kg W Claus, Po Eng West Vancouver fun, when there are children starving in other parts of the world! Some places in Spain, they also have a lotof fun on week cnds, where rabbits and geese are ticd up by thet hind legs and hung from posts ina facld where people (who pay) are handed rocks whieh they throw af the creatures Those that are killed are carried away by the wtaners They all have a very happy time! Cathe Vo Campbeil (Mrs) West Vancouver away on Dear Editor The recent Lalonde budgct means hard times for most Canadians TVhere is little comtort for the unemployed oF for the taxpayer still lucky cnough to have an income It is, therefore, infunating to learn that the © anadian government will boast foreign aid spending by a whopping FR pet cent to $2 147 billbon Over the next five years, according to plans approved for the © anadian International Development Agency (C EDA), we wall be giving $112 million to © om munist China, $87 malhion to the Marnist dictatorship in Gauyana, and $178 milhon to Tansania Tanzania particularly in terests and outrages me | have just read a fascinating booklet entitled Les Them bat Julius Nyerere (© anada. Tanzania, and foretgn Atd by scholar James Hull This ‘ald study looks at the incredible waste of several hundred milhon Canadian tax dollars in this bast African Marxist dictatorship in Tanzanta, the problem is its dictator Nycrere, whose colelctive farm policy has ruined Tan ania agniculture decade ago, fiscated European wheat farms Phe land returned to the jungle Along comes Canada and at the cost of mithons of dollars, we have not yet replaced the wheat the Tanzanian government thiew Over oa Tanzania con away by tts own socialist polices Let Then bat Julius Nyerere is available for $1 50 from a group called ¢ FAR (Box 332, Reaxadaic, Ontanw, M9W SL 3) ft will make you angry as you prepare your 1983 tan returns and realize where your moncy ts going WK Long Fenwich, One