Vacation dollars uly and August are reparded as the ‘‘dead"’ months by many North and West Van merchants and service businesses. “*Everyone’s away on vacation, vw ag they Jament, ‘so there’s no point in making any special selling effort. We'll just have to hang in there as best we can until business picks up again in September.’ The statistics, however, tell a very different story. Surveys show thal members of at least 50% of the North Shore’s 54,000 households spend their summer vacations right here at home. Given the scenic and rec- reational facilities of the area, that’s hardly surprising. Those 54,000 households have an average income of $42,000. If roughly half this figure is taken up with items like the mortgage, rent, utilities and insurances, it still leaves over $400 weekly per houschold for buy- ing goods and services locally. Assuming average three-week vacations, members of half the North Shore’s households are going to be around for at least six weeks out of the nine-week peak holiday period. The other half will be sround the entire time. What it all adds up to is a minimum of $163 million in disposable income up for grabs by North and West Van stores and services between Canada Day and Labor Day — from customers in a free-spending holi- day mood. It’s no time to roll over and play dead. The July- August vacation weeks offer a bonanza for North Shore businesses smart enough to seize the opportuni- ty. : BLATANT DOUBLE STANDARDS A sanctions ban THERE’S A GROWING MYSTERY about the ‘‘sanctions against South Africa’’ bandwagon, now so overloaded that it could well wreck the commonwealth. It's a mystery doing little credit to either the morality or the mental capabilities of the bandwagon riders — including our own Brian Mulblarney. The United Nations recipe for the survival of the international com- munity is based on one fundamen- tal principle. A sovereign state doesn't mess with another sovereign state unless the latter poses a direct threat to its safety or vital interests. And if there’s no such threat, a sovereign state does not interfere in the purely internal affairs of another sovereign state, however much it disapproves of the way they are handled. Apartheid may be reprehenaibie, though most Canadians, Jacking firsthand knowledge of South Africa, are poor judges of just how reprehensible. But one thing apar theid is definitely nor. It’s not a direct threat to the safe- ty or vital interests of Canada or any other nation. So — quite aside from the fact that sanctions against a proud, tough country have never been known to work — today’s accepted interna- tional rules say there's no excuse for outsiders to attack South Africa with economic weapons in a bid to impose SUNDAY . WEDNESDAY 1139 Lonsdale Ave. North Vancouver, B.C. V7M 2H4 57,656 Giverage Welnestay Podag & Gutdagi Display Advertising 980-0511 Classified Advertising 986-6222 Newsroom 985-2131 Distribution 986-1337 Subscriptions 986-1337 Vonh Shore te ALI SAID WAS. GEE, IT LOOKS UKE VANDER ZALM COULD BE OUR NEXT PREMIER... Fer antvmnreran tp seremermmnmeeeeee PLEASE TAKE A NUMBER Eas A AND WANT, (Froneven) fg eres Ver decided to stop all trade with Canada until we handed the place back to the Indians? Noel Wright their will in what’s ctearly a domestic South African issue. Brian Mulblarney and all the other ardent sanction-mongers worldwide argue, of course, that they are justified on grounds of humanitarianism and the rights of a black majority vs. an oppressive white minority. That argument, alas, brands them as guilty of blatant double standards. For starters, how happy was Ot- tawa when the European communi- ty boycotted seal furs to protest the annual carnage on the New- foundland ice floes — clearly a domestic Canadian issue? And how happy would our prime minister be if the world community LETTER OF THE DAY Fight banks harboring Dear Editor: ! commend Switzerland for her unprecendented move to put 2 hold on some of the Marcos and Duvalier loot, money stolen from their poor countrymen. However, tens of thousands of other criminals, tax dodgers, corrupt officials and rulers, who bleed the world's poor countries as well as the economies of developed nations, are still provided safe haven for their ill- gotten fortunes by Switzerland. Home of the International Red Cross and many other reputable in- ” ternational agencies, Switzerland is generally considered a champion of @ focus ® The worst double standard of the sanction-mongers, however, is in relation to the many countries around the globe where human rights count for even less than in South Africa — which at feast has reasonably independent courts of law still functioning. Why isn’t Mulblarney also leading the pack to slap sanctions on Ghana, Uganda, Nigeria and Pinochet's Chile? Or, for that matter, on our big grain customer, the Soviet Union, and its ruthless satellite dictatorships? His honest answer, in the latter case at any rate, has to be: “ft would cost us too dearly in trade and we the cause of the poor and down- trodden brethren of our global village. People of that beautiful country that I have come across are conscientious and compassionate. But when it comes to their notorious banking system, which immensely harms the world’s poor and to some extent us (1 bet there must be hun- dwagon mystery wouldn't dare, anyhow." There’s a reverse racism at work here, too. Are whites brutalized in East European and Chilean prisons somehow less important than blacks banned from white Johannesburg suburbs but otherwise unmolested provided they obey the law? And what would be the fate of South Africa’s white minority — whose forefathers settled the land 300 years ago when there were no blacks there — after the communist- dominated African National Con- gress terrorists took over? For that matter, how happy would U.S. and West European sanction- mongers be with Soviet warships in Simonstown patrolling the Cape of Good Hope seas? South Africa obviously has to figure out a better future than apar- theid for its black citizens and there are many signs that influential forces within the white minority itself are already moving in that direction. Positive, helpful, neighborly per- suasion by their overseas friends could speed the process. Sanctions, inviting a government backlash that could assure a bloody civil war, won't, The growing mystery is why Ron- nie Reagan and Maggie Thatcher seem to be the only two world leaders smart enough to stay off such a ram- shackle bandwagon. Publisher: Editor-in-Chief! Managing Editor Advertising Director Peter Speck Noel Wright Barrett Fisher Linda Stewart Ente contents 1246 North Shore Free Press Ltd All ughts cesenved traqe truth lies beyond the headlines OPEN any major Canadian news publication these days, one that at- tempts to cover all the news, and try to find one that doesn’t mention free trade. By TONY CARLSON Do the same with any similar U.S. publication. Try to find one that does mention free trade. What's the point? Simply this: to us, north of the border, free trade is a riveting issue. But to the Americans, with few exceptions, free trade with the frozen north is way down the list of priorities. It also points up the fact that, in this country at least, the media have assumed the role of a third party in the ongoing freer trade negotiations. The question is not whether the media should be running these stories. The real question is whether Cana- dians will be able to see beyond to- day's headlines, to see that freer trade with the U.S. is an essential stepping stone to making this coun- try more competitive on a world scale, (CFIB Feature Service) ‘blood money’ dreds if not thousands of Canadians with Swiss bank accounts), greed gets the better of the Swiss and they turn a blind eye to it. This attitude of the Swiss reminds me of a quote by Leo Tolstoy: *'! sit on a man’s back, making him carry me, choking him; yet [ assure myself and all others that I feel very sorry for him and want to lighten nis load by any means possible — except get- ting off his back.” All governments and individuals must exert pressure on Switzerland and other bankers who harbour blood money. Bish Bhagwanani Victoria