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editoriol poge Don't Expect Miracles Armed with brochures and tapes in four languages, a top-level delegation from Durham Region is presently on a 16-day tour of Europe in an effort to entice business and industry into setting up shop within the boundaries of Durham. The four-man group led by Regional chairman Walter Beath left for the other side of the Atlantic on May 11 and will return home May 27. Accompanying the chairman are director of development Robert Nicol, planning commissioner William McAdams, and development officer Richard Spence. RE SN nearly as many headaches. However, while the present outlook in Canada is anything but rosy, most economists agree that over the dividends will be obvious. The public, however, has been treated to a couple of recent examples of flagrant abuse of the long term, this country will overcome its %. taxpayers money by appointed officials carrying out problems and once again become an attractive place to do business. With this in mind, therefore, we should not be too hasty in any criticism of the money spent by Mr. Beath and his colleagues. If they can at least put Durham on the international map, so to speak, and conduct themselves as knowledgeable and capable ambassadors from the Region, the money will have been well spent. If the trip sets the wheels in motion for even one new industry in the next couple of years, commissions and enquiries (the LaMarsh Commission on violence readily comes to mind) and one can scarcely blame the taxpayers if their patience is running a little thin. Now nobody would expect Mr. Beath and his colleagues to have to hitch-hike with back-packs from country to country or seek accommodation in $5. a night hotels, but the tax-paying public does have a right to demand restraint whenever possible and a detailed account of every penny that is spent. Plans for this European trip, which will include stops in the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, and the International Exhibition in Basel, Switzerland, have not been without controversy and debate. At one time the mayors of Oshawa, Whitby and Pickeringwere slated to go along, but the provincial government, which is paying 75 per cent of the cost, pulled the rug out from under the politicians. The cost of the four-man delegation is estimated at $15,000. with the provincial subsidy paying for 75 per cent, and no doubt there are some who are wondering whether the results (if any) will justify the expense. Both Mr. Beath and Mr. Nicol acknowledge that this first-time effort is not likely to produce any over-night miracles of long lines of investors breaking down the doors to set up industries in the Region. And the critics certainly have_ plenty of ammunition. While Durham does have lots of serviced industrial land available, the international business community is not exactly enamoured these days with Canada's economic climate or the pros- pect of laying out large capital investments to set up néw industry here. In fact, a similar trip last year by Premier 'William Davis and members of his cabinet turned into something of an embarrassment when foreign industrialists pointed at our taxation rates, labour - ~~ Sa NO 1 J SLY oi TAD A a) \ SN NM a WW Ne x N\ unrest, high prices and tough environmental regu- %% Z lations, and suggested that there are lots of places in 7 % 7 | the world where bigger profits can be made without 1 4 7 iF 4 Zz 1 A p bill smiley LOUSY APRIL Poet T. S. Eliot once wrote: "April is the cruellest month". I don't know about that - November is no slouch in this country, when it comes to cruelty - but April is certainly no bargain around here. It's a sort of zilch month. All the other months have some character, except afore- said November. They're either something to make you look forward with anticipation, backward with relief, or to just plain enjoy. : : May is golf and fishing and grass greening and flowers blopming. June is the first heat wave, lilac scent, mosquitoes, and summer just ahead. July and August are summer in all its glory, hot dogs, swimming, camping, baseball, trips, summer theatre, -family reunions, cottaging. September is a glorious month, usually. Warm enough, everybody getting back into the groove, new schoolmates, new interests, new friends, new follies to commit oneself to. . October is great; sharp air, fresh produce, --golden-sun, football, magnificent foliage, Thanksgiving weekend. "Let's skip ruddy November. But Decem- "ber is exciting with fresh snow, Christmas with all its ramifications, holidays coming up, families getting together. January and February are brutal but chal'enging. We're right into the curling and skiing, the daily battle to stay alive, and the knowledge that once we're over the hump, about Feb. 20, the worst lies behind. Even rotten March has its compensat- ions: Easter," worst of the winter over, March break, and only one or two more snowstorms to survive. Then comes cruddy April. There's nothing to do out of doors. Curling and skiing are finished, and it's too early for golf and fishing. Nothing to do outside except catch a cold in that frigid wind blowing off the ice in the bay. It's a dirty month. There's salt and sand and mud on the streets, to be tracked into the house. It's a pain in the arm for housewives. That lousy yellow sun peers insolently through the windows, illumin- ating dirty panes, smeared wallpaper, spots on the rug, stains on the chairs, and well-fingered woodwork, none of which showed up in the dear dark days of winter.' The home-maker's heart sinks. Male homeowners are just plain embar- rassed asthe snow imperceptibly melts, revealing all manner of junk on front and back lawn. This year I watched with growing dismay the surfacing of four daily papers, in their yellow plastic wrappers on the front lawn, where some turkey kid had thrown them when there was four feet of snow.on said area. Then up crept one disgusting item after another. Lawnmower peeping first its head, then rusty body out of the snow, a reminder of how I was caught short again last November by the first fall. Picnic chairs, lurching out of the shrink- ing drifts like a couple of old winos, decrepit, falling apart, disgusting. Fragments of Christmas tree, swept up, minced and thrown all over the lawn by the snowplow in - early January. A stack of newspapers, put out with the garbage in February, picked up by that same monster during a blizzard, chewed up and hurled into three-pound lumps all over the place, each solidly frozen into the ice, sdlt, and sand. Last fall's oak leaves, caught on the ground by the first snowstorm, about three inches thick, looking about as appetizing as the meat in a particularly repellent shep- erd's pie. , - i April is also a rough month on teachers. If -the sun is shining; however feebly, students gasp wildly, pretend they're dying of heat, throw all the classroom windows wide to the 40 degree breeze that spells bronchial pneumonia to the less hot-blooded pedant. For university students about to graduate, April is hellish. Final exams loom like the Furies of old, and all the procrastination begins to catch up. And these days, 90 per cent of them are quite convinced they won't get a job, on graduation. Speaking of nothing to do outside, as I was away back there, there is nothing to do inside either. Unless you want to watch large, young sweaty, overpaid athletes smash each other into the boards, as the pro hockey playoffs wend their way wearily, toward the finals. This year, April was worse than usual, with a thousand windbags expelling their -contents into the air about an upcoming election. Suddenly, all sorts of people who couldn't care less whether you got ingrown toenails or fell into a cess-pool, began showing great friendliness and sincerity, a genuine concern about your point of view and how you would vote. And I think the month of April is pretty well brought to its climax by the income tax return, due on the last day of that miserable month. I always feel that I've been beaten, raped, and left naked by the side of the road, when that ordeal is over, It doesn't cheer me up much to | ok around and see all the people diddling the unemployment insurance, all the former students, now fairly affluent, who never paid back their student loans. Looking back, all I can say is that April is Awful, Thank goodness for May. Not to mention Pearly, Ruby, and Mabel.