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Yet the bigâ€"mouth unionists refuse to take a referendum to accept or reject the government offer of a 38 per cent raise over 30 months back to their membership â€" for fear that they will accept it. It‘s obvious something is crooked in there somewhere, and things will not return to normal until the present union executive are turfed out of power. It‘s the only answer, because it‘s the top brass that are making demands that are ludicrous by most standards. The 38 per cent hike is one of the best ever offered civil servants anywhere, and cannot be deemed less than generous. The postal strike is a farce and a sham. There‘s no doubt about it, a few powerâ€"hungry union heads are trying to dupe the federal government, the Canadian people alongâ€" with their own rank and file. The actions of small bands of inside postal workers across the country can leave no doubt that there is overall dissention with the union. Union officials refuse to realize that members trickling back to work and openly voicing opâ€" position to the strike is a move of nonâ€"confidence at their action. The union moguls are wielding their power, walking a tightrope to retain it, all the while not taking into account the wishes of CUPW memâ€" bers. Granted, it is basically the same package ofâ€" fered by the government in the first place, but from all standpoints it makes a heck of a lot more sense than the 51 per cent increase the union is seeking. Just because the union lowered their original request by 20 per cent doesn‘t rate them any sympathy whatsoever. Let‘s face it, when there are calls for restraint for the rest of the country to settle for 10 per cent in wage demands over the next three years, a 38 per cent raise looks more than attractive. Canada Post has been long overdue for a comâ€" plete overhaul, so let it start right here and now with common sense in settling the present disâ€" pute. Ottawa says business won‘t be hurt by that 10â€"cent a gallon raise in the federal gasoline tax because it can be reclaimed. Which just shows how remote the mandarins are from reality. How much will it cost to keep track of the extra tax? What happens to cash flow while waiting to get it back? How many new forms will have to be filled out in how many copies? What about the extra costs to supâ€" pliers? They, too, have to pay more every day so how do they hold their prices? Dr. Donner, the economist, calculates the extra 10â€"cent tax, plus the $1.50 rise in the price of crude oil (most of which is tax). plus the rise in natural gas rates, will bump the Consumer Price Index by three per cent by July of 1976. If all this is in aid of saving fuel, why not reduce the speed limit to 55 mph and save lives as well? Ottawa says the 10 per cent tax is to help pay the cost of importâ€" ing foreign fuel to Quebec and the Maritimes. But gas is selling for 61 cents in Quebec versus 75 cents in Ontario‘ Gas, beef, eggs â€" once Ottawa gets into the pricing business it distorts the market system. As if new battalions of civil servants can regulate demand and supply as effecâ€" tively as millions of Canadians do every day by their inâ€" dividual choices. Even worse is the growth of paperwork that results from each new Ottawa ruling. A national survey conducted for the first two quarters of 1975 by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business showed "govâ€" ernment regulations and the paperwork burden‘‘ to be the single most important problem facing businessmen today. The effect of all the interference from Ottawa is to disâ€" courage businesses from expanding. Who wants to grow bigger when growth merely aggravates the problems? More business means more taxes, more paperwork, more personal worry in a 70â€"hour week to satisfy the 9 to 4 exâ€" perts in Ottawa. OTTAWA and Small Business By Kenneth McDonald â€" Waterloo Chronicle, Wednesday, November 12, 1975 Now or never Published every Wednesday by Fairway Press, a division of Kitchenerâ€"Waterloo Record Ltd. 225 Fairway Rd., Kitâ€" chener, Ontario. Address correspondence to Waterloo Square, Waterloo. Ont. Telephone 744â€"6364. Canadians are justly proud of the continued good health of the democratic process in this country. Here, our varâ€" ious elected governments, municipal and regional, provinâ€" cial and federal, maintain their validity as representatives of all the people. Here, legislation is shaped to meet the inâ€" terests and needs of minorities as well as of majorities. Here, legislation is made effective by due process of the law. At the same time, the law protects the people from legislative abuse of power. This is in marked contrast to deteriorating conditions in many other countries, including Britain which historically has been the exemplar of the democratic process. Abroad, factional strife is rendering more and more governments ineffective; legislation and its application is subject inâ€" creasingly to the blackmail of groups claiming special privâ€" ilege, or to groups prepared to resort to violence to gain their ends. In such countries, anarchists and authoritarian rulers alike vie to replace governments responsible to all of the people. The freedom, the security and the wellâ€"being Canadians accept as their heritage, even though far from perfect, are the envy of people in many other countries. This heritage has been built up slowly, often with difficulty requring great patience and much tolerance on the part of reformers and reactionaries alike. The Canadian tradition has been, among both reformers and reactionaries, to uphold the auâ€" thority of governments, even while trying to change their composition. The importance of maintaining this tradition, and the terâ€" rible consequence of discarding it as many other countries have been doing, were considered recently by one of Canaâ€" da‘s most persistent advocates of reform, Bora Laskin, for Viewing the Ne Yesterday‘s mild weather attracted Roger Lebek, 11. and Bill Waters, 11, to Waterloo Park to throw stones in Laurel Creek. Law is the essence of order waterioo chronicle ESTABLISHED 1854 many years a liberal professor of law, now Chief Justice of Canada. Speaking to administrators, teachers, students and parâ€" ents at Convocation at Simon Fraser University â€" a repreâ€" sentative Canadian audience â€" the Chief Justice noted that respect for, and compliance with the law is the very essence of social order. Without this respect for duly promulgated laws, governments cannot operate;, neither can churches, corporate enterprises, labor unions, service clubs, or famâ€" ilies, all social entities. The Chief Justice added that defiance of the law or the breach of legal obligations does not become respectable nor socially tolerable merely because it is not attended by physâ€" ical violence. "If objection to existing law is itself a justiâ€" fication for refusing to obey it, where do we stop and with whom do we stop? In Canada, the Chief Justice noted, the judiciary is indeâ€" pendent and "judicial decisions do not require executive or political approval in order to become enforceable." With respect, 1 submit that does not take certain practical realiâ€" ties into account. A judgment may be enforceable, but other authorities may choose not to enforce it, thereby makâ€" ing a mockery of the law and of evenâ€"handed justice. Further, there is little a court can do if aggrieved citizens, or those chosen to act on their behalf, fail to bring a matter before the courts, where the guilty may be convicted and the innocent declared so. An instance of such hesitancy and an indication of the consequences appropriately may be noted here for they appear to parallel the theme of the Chief Justice. In brief, a commissioner appointed to investigate a rash of fires in Montreal last fall reported to the Quebec Nationâ€" al Assembly that court action should be taken under the labor code forbidding strikes by firemen, who had walked off the job for the third time. "If governments charged with assuring respect for the law neglected to do so, were the firemen not incited to believe they had the power to defy the law?¢‘ the commissioner commented. In the Assembly, the Quebec Justice Minister said no deâ€" cision to prosecute had been reached, although a month earlier, the same minister had declared in the Assembly in a broader context that "the law must be respected"‘. In his dissertation on respect for the law, Chief Justice Laskin included this statement: ‘"A democracy, a parliaâ€" mentary system of government, must do its best to test and weigh conflicting interests and conflicting expectations and ultimately try to reconcile them and satisfy them, perhaps by relative adjustment, perhaps by considering compromise ahead of outright rejection, but must nonetheless be preâ€" pared to risk the political consequences of outright rejecâ€" tion .‘