The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

. 't.e"n-toetomt'ttttolh-rr0,ttttru, ‘5'" Watery Wednesday byFairway Press.adivisionot Kitrtteeter-Watertoo Record Ltd. 125 Fairway Rd., Kit- chener. Ontario. Addmss correspondence to Waterloo as. Square, Waterloo. Ott. Telephone 744-6364. Ald. Charles Voeiker's suggestion of the city building a crematorium in Parkview Cemetery deserves applause as it will provide a needed service not only for Waterloo but for surrounding municipalities. _ We are not talking about the moral-issues regarding cremation. This is something each person has to decide for himself according to his religion and conscience. . From a practical viewpoint Ald. Voelker's plan has a lot of merit. Persons who wish a cremation instead of a normal burial must have the body shipped to Toronto, Hamilton or Lon- This involves added expense for the family plus extra services for thd shipment of -the ashes back to the loved-ones. The cost factor between cremation and re- gular burial is not that great but the beauty of Ald. Voelker's proposal is that this service would be provided within the city without the need for additional transportation charges. We do feel, however, that Ald. Voelker is try- ing. to provide the residents of Waterloo with a viable alternative to burial and he deserves our applause. The cost of the ierenfatorium would not be a burden to taxpayers thus his suggestion has even more merit. The choice of the type of funeral one wants is such a personal matter that AIO one can say which method is better. While most of us do not enjoy thinking about the death of someone close or even our own death, it is a f act we will all die eventually. Ald. Voelker sees this fact and is only trying to provide a complete service for everyone. We hope he sees this project completed and in opera- tion before too long. Within the next weeiisto 10 days thousands of public and high school students will gave the classrooms for the annual summer vac on. There are about 178 schools in the region with a student population of about 100,000. Most of these students are full of fun, life and enthusiasm for the warm and sunny days of freedom that lie ahead. With the joy of summer freedom comes the added menance of children and traffic. This is the time of year when accidents should, not happen: - It is a frightening time for drivers as young- sters who are carefree, not necessarily careless, dash after a baseball that left the diamond and rolled into the streets. Other youngsters give drivers heart murmurs when they ride their bicycles two and three abreast and ignore the traffic signals and rules of the road. Summer vacation is great and many of us look back with fond memories on those days of our youth. How sad it would be to mar this happy time with a tragedy. A good proposal In Canada: one year $8: in United States and Foreign countries: one year $10 tllrlrlrElrtErl Editor: Mike Roy SUBSCRIPTION RATES ESTABLISHED ttM w 11:53 In the endless discussion about the use-- and misuse - of natural resources around the world, the main spotlight generally falls on oil. This is quite understandable because the affluent, urbanized nations need the energy that oil provides to run the machines of industry and to light the cities: But in fact the most important of the world's resources is land. Man grows his food on the land. The rain that falls upim the land accumu- lates in lakes, rivers and man-made reservoirs to give humanity its water. And millennia before oil was discovered, our ancestors needed food and water to sustain life. _. mama? tr,.' ' l- _jiiiirjiiiijiiitjt 1jmurf"i',i,'i' -6uy mush 'q l Ji0ihesil, ‘~;CAS\ER’-‘ Historically, wars have been fought over possession of the soil Most of the great migra- tions have been-undertaken by peoples seeking more fertile and hospitable land. _ And now, the land around the world is very unevenly divided. This causes demographers serious headaches. No single nation, and no bloc of nations, can be blamed. The quirks of history have created a world that has been for centuries and remains to this day tilted in favor of the rich, white nations. The United States, Canada, Australia and France have vast wheatlands - and enjoy sue- cessful farming methods - whereas hundreds of millions in ‘Asia, Africa and Latin America go hungry, sometimes for lack of land, other times simply because they lack knowhow. In the Sahel, it is lack of land. In Mali, the Sahelian drought has destroyed the immense grasslands around Timbuktu, home for a thousand years of the proud Tuaregs and their herds of cattle, sheep and goats. Chad reports that half of its territory is smothering in Sahara sand. In Ethiopia to the East, 100,000 are said to have died in recent months during a disastrous drought. Where was the fertile land that per- haps should be every man's right? It is argued by some philosophers, visionaries, radicals and even economists that the land which gives us0ife should be considered more as a resource than as private property. This is not a very novel concept, although it is certainly an unpopular one in capitalist and also in some socialist societies. The sanctity of private property has endured for many cen- turies and the ownership of land is something that countless millions of human beings have aspired to down the ages. And yet in China, where almost a quarter of mankind lives, people don't own their land. It belongs to the state or the commune or the production brigade. And is there much point in owning land, say, in Mauretania - the most seriously affected of the Sahelian nations? Mau- Land, our greatest resource {an Ns,t retania has had no significant harvest for two years. A - _ - - .-- _ These are questions that can be and will be debated for decades, and of course there is no easy answer, no simple solution. The truth is, however, that land will have to be utilized more justly and more rationally in the last quarter of this century, and in the 21st century, if man-. kind is to continue thriving on this planet. ' Take Indonesia alone, for instance. Already this island nation, strung out for 3,000 miles be- tween the Pacific and Indian oceans, has about 130 million people of whom two-thirds live on the islands of Bali, Java and Madura. By the year 2,000 Indonesia's population - despite control measures - will have grown to about 240 million. Java will have become an island city. World population will grow even more rapidly, doubling from four billion people today to about eight billion within 25 years. This shows that the world's big problem is the ratio between food and people. Can we produce double the food we grow today by the turn of the century? The injustices of land distribution around the world are only too obvious - locally, nation- ally and internationally. One village with fertile soil and an ample water supply may get double the crop yields of another one only a few miles away. some of the most unfortunate nations are so poor not because their people have less in- telligence but because they lack resourees. --. But there are signs of change, and change will have to come more rapidly. Those blessed with much fertile land will have to learn to give more readily and more often to those nature and history have deprived. Governments in overpopulated lands such as Bangladesh and Jndia, authorities on over- crowded islands such as Java and Mauritius, will have to find the courage to dissuade their people from having large families. Rich nations must put behind them the temp- tation of using cheap labor to exploit the natural resources of developing countries. Fairer prices must be paid by the rich to the poor if the tilt- ing global balance is to be corrected. Much will depend on the leadership in many lands. The combined political will of rich and poor can bridge the gap that continues to divide too much of the world into those who have much. and those who have nothing. It will be a long and complex task, a desperate struggle With many setbacks. But all of us must persevere - and must look at the alternatives to greater justice - if we are to ensure for our children and grandchildren a peaceful 2lst cen- tury. _ "do. ' ODWMUTE, DEATH " ,.' SWEWES! _ iilf' Riitsit' siir mm 5! £9 if