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JACK STOKES REPORTS Since the Legislature adjourned on July 23rd, Jack Stokes M.P.P. for Thunder Bay has visited many towns, villages and Indian Reserves in the Riding, covering over three thousand miles in travelling from Manitouwadge on the east to Upsula in the west and Big Trout Lake Reserve in the north. He has visited many places in between conferring with and assist- ing constituents with their problems. Mr. Stokes hopes to visit all remaining parts of Thunder Bay be- fore The Legislature reconvenes late this Fall. He found his first session in Queen's Park to be challen- ging and rewarding. The House sat from February 14th until July 23rd and acquires from twelve to fifteen hours of a members time daily while in session. : He has taken advantage of every opportunity to impress upon Government and Cabinet the needs and aspirations of People in Northern Ontario. We, as citizens of the wealthiest province in one of the most affluent nations of the world can take little pride in our past achievements if we neglect to eradicate the pockets of poverty and deprivation that exist on our own doorstep. We have victims of industrial acci- dents who are expected to exist on compensation of $43.00 per month. We have people who find it more lucrative to remain on welfare rather than seek em- ployment as unskilled labourers. There is no room for complacancy until solutions have been found to correct problems said Mr. Stokes. HEMMING & HAWING .. . Skirts are dear to all men under 80 probably, but -- points out the Swedish business journal Ekonomen -- ladies' hemlines seem to have been neglected by motivational researchers . . . In a new book on advertising, Tom Bjorklund puts it on the hemline: The business cycle goes up and down with the length of women's skirts-. . . From the look of the accompanying Ups and downs of hemlines (and business?) in centimeters, 1914--oo 20 pay | SO | ry a) chart, business -- and girl-watching -- have never been better . . . Keep 'em up, girls! INCENTIVE SCHEME ... The Peking Review carries a story about an incentive scheme for producing paper and increasing printing productivity, a plan which would never get off the ground here . . . Sid Cassel of Thorn Press feels Canadians might find it interesting . . . With new feaders in both parties, do you think we'll respond as ful- somely as this: "Fired with boundless love for their great leader Chairman Mao and with deepest esteem for the in- vincible thought of Mao Tse-tung," says the Review, "proletarian revolutionaries in China's paper-making in- dustry have raised January-August output of letterpress paper chiefly for use in printing Chairman Mao's works by 61 percent over the corresponding figure of last year. 'Taking firm hold of the revolution and promoting pro- duction,' they overcame many difficulties. Their eight- month output is equal to the total made in the whole of 1966 which in turn was 61 percent above the 1965 figure and nearly double the 1964 amount. Quality, too, has been improved. . "The proletarian revolutionaries and revolutionary workers and staff of the nation's paper mills proudly declare: By making more letterpress paper we are helping to spread the - mighty thought,of Mao Tse-tung. Our class enemies are mortally afraid of it. But the more they try to obstruct the printing of Chairman Mao's works and the more they try to prevent the workers, peasants and soldiers from master- ing Mao Tse-tung's thought, the more paper we will pro- duce for these printings so that Mao Tse-tung's thought will light the whole world." - from July issue Canadian Printer and Publisher GOVERNMENT NOT A SOAP OPERA {2 IN NEWFOUNDLAND, Premier Smallwood is critical of the newspapers. They haven't been telling the public everything that he wants them to hear. His answer has been variously described as a "government newspaper" and as a "party newspaper." It is to be published once a month. There have been occasions, in this country and elsewhere, when other governments have sought ways to tell their side of the story without the intervention of an independent press. Most voters are wise enough to take anything fulsome with a pinch of salt, and even where there is only one way to vote, as in Russia, the better educated and more sophisticated are unlikely to believe all the government propaganda. But there are always some who do. General de Gaulle believes a certain amount of secrecy is a help in governing his country and is on record as saying so, and if they could have their way as often as the general has his, most politicians would probably prefer to tell the voters just what they want them to know, and no more, and only when they want them to know it. The ultimate danger is the politician who can manipulate public opinion and run his government like a soap opera, giving out just enough information from time to time to fascinate the audience and keep it watching. ES * * € FLY IN THE OINTMENT for the politician who tries to fool the voters is a free press. The Canadian post office commemorative for September is to be a five-cent stamp bearing the portrait of Henri Bourassa, founder of Le Devoir and a notable dissenter in his day. A free country needs journalists in the dissenting tradition more than it needs government newspapers and managed news.