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In a few sneering asides. we learn that Shylock hates the rich merchant. He has reasons. The merâ€" chant has spat upon him. spurned him. called him dog. and hurt him badly in the pocketbook by lending A rich merchant is approached by his best friend, a young man who has squandered all his money, includâ€" ing a goodly sum the merchant has lent him. The young fellow wants his friend to lend him another sum, about $35,000, so that he can get himself all duded up and marry a wealthy heiress, upon which he will return all the money he owes. For friendship‘s sake. the rich merchant says. "No problem. All my cash is tied up in ships at sea with rich cargoes, but my credit is excellent. Go borrow the money and T‘ll back your note."" Or words to that effect. I am Will Smiley. not Will Shakespeare So the young blade goes to a notorious moneyâ€" lender. Shylock, who agrees to lend him the money for three months. Usually. he charges more interest than Household Finance. but this time he won‘t charge any. The plot thickens Recently I‘ve been teaching that perennial favorite, The Merchant of Venice, by one Will Shakespeare. It‘s a light, romantic comedy, but through the pretty speeches and comic complications runs an iron and an irony that almost steals the play every time it is read or performed: the story of Shylock the moneyâ€"lender and his insistence on his pound of flesh. That word and that phrase have become part of our language. You may have heard someone say, "He‘s a regular Shylock," or, ‘"He always wants his pound of flesh.‘" They are synonyms of a merciless greed. hatred,. and desire for revenge. For those who have forgotten the plot, or haven‘t read or seen the play, I‘ll give a pocket synopsis. I feel differently about it now . . . after nearly 10,000 doors (35,000 to go‘!). It‘s called "pounding the pavement." Or ‘"knocking on doors." Also ‘"canvassing."‘ I prefer ‘‘*meeting the people."‘ Going from door to door is what I dreaded most about campaigning. But I now recognize this form of meeting the people as absolutely essential and have found it to be very rewarding . . . even when plodding through slush and It‘s not that I love canvassing to the point of allowâ€" ing it to interfere with "hockey night in Canada.‘"‘ | To begin with, most of the people are hospitable and friendly. During three days of intensive interviewing J have become more sensitive tp the problems and general lifestyle of the residents of Costain Major; the name the residents have chosen for their 17â€"acre rural comâ€" munity on the western outskirts of metropolitan Waâ€" ‘terloo. They are a plain but proud people. And they don‘t take kindly to anyone confusing their village with Costain Minor, the fourâ€"acre hamlet that has been swallowed up by Kitchener as a mindr conâ€" sequence of the border dispute. | By Geoff Hoile $ Now that it‘s official â€" the boundary between Kitchener and Waterloo has been moved â€" I was sent out on assignment to find out what it really means to the people in the area involved. e When the action to change the border between Waâ€" terlooâ€" and Kitchener was ratified in the council chambers of the regional government and the two cities it marked the end of an era for the people in Costain Major and Minor. For some it was a new beâ€" ginning, for others it was the bitter repetition of cenâ€" turies of unrest. The cause of the border skirmish â€" the proposed freeway connecting Waterloo‘s two uniâ€" versities with the road to the west â€" has lost much of its significance, despite the fact Waterloo lost the batâ€" tle and now has to build the road. What is important here is that while the residents of Costain Major at last become Waterloovians, the four â€"According to Hoile Bill Smiley acres of people in Costain Minor have been robbed of their heritage and as Kitchenarians inherit higher ‘taxes, the ward system and market value assessment of their homes. A\ One elderly farmer, taking time out from spreading manure over his twoâ€"andâ€"aâ€"half acre Costair Major lot, toid me he was ecstatic over the border shift. Roger Bjdn and his family have been waiting for 25 years to buy land they could afford in Waterloo, and now ‘‘in answer to our prayers, the city fathers have literally moved our homstead into the promised land."" Mr. Bjdn, who lives with his wife, four cats and a dog, said that as soon as he can get into town, he plans to fill in the necessary immigration papers and send for the rest of the family now living in Kitchener. For the residents of Costain Minor the story is not such a happy one. A university professor, who moved away from Kitchener to avoid having to pay for that city‘s proposed Ant Centre, now finds himself plunged "back into a vulnerable location within the new Kitchener boundary. The former Waterloo resident, Watta Croque said, ‘"sure, I helped promote .the new Kitchener art centre when Costain Minor was part of Waterloo; it seemed like a great idea. Do I still think it‘s a great idea now that I live in Kitchener? Are you money interestâ€"free. Shylock can stand the spitting and the names, but he turns purple when he thinks someone is lending money with no interest when he could be copping 40 per cent. He sees his chance. Sure, he‘ll lend the young spender the money, interesyfree, provided the merâ€" chant will sign a bond: that if the mon‘ey is not repaid by a certain date, Shylock may take a pound of flesh from any part of the merchant‘s body. 1It‘s all a joke, of course. As Shylock points out, a pound of human flesh is not worth as much as a pound of veal, or even a pound of hamburger. (This was before inflation. I wouldn‘t bet on it nowadays.) \The rich merchant agrees, airily. After all, his ships will be in with their rich cargoes a whole month beâ€" fore the bond is due. And nobody would take a pound of flesh. Smart young lawyer to the rescue. Shylock may take his pound of flesh, but not one drop of blood. not one ninth of an ounce more or less that pound. or his own life, and all his property, is forfeit. Try that one on the next pig you kill. Big trial scene. The law upholds Shylock‘s claim. Old Shy is whetting a big carving knife on his boot. The rich merchant stands, breast bared. It‘s as good as the old melodrama, with the heroine tied to the railway tracks by the villain, and the train fast apâ€" proaching. . (Shhh! We in the audience know that Shylock will take a pound of flesh from the heart area, and that the laws of the city will back him up, if the bond is signed in quadruplicate.) Well, well. It is rumoured on the stock exchange that the rich merchant‘s ships have all been lost at sea, and he is bankrupt. e crazy?" Once, when I made a big circle around a dog on a leash eyeing me warily from underneath a ‘"beware of the dog‘‘ sign, two boys shouted from the roof of the garage: "It‘s only a joke." And so it was. The dog didn‘t stir . . . not even when I talked politics‘! My experience is that only once in every 100 homes or so do people decline to accept your literature. Only once in 100 homes or so do they close the door in your face. And, although â€" there are many more dogs than I ever believed possible, my impression is that most of them are Liberals. Which is to say, when they bark at you they are really rooting for you. * Besides, for every 100 contacts you also get at least one volunteer worker for your campaign. ~ Now Shylock was stumped. (An old cricket term., The most painful visits have been to very poor famiâ€" Weev Haddit, a mink ramther who presently has a Liberal candidate Wateriloo riding Frank Epp C > * â€" With#hiGe Chignicle, Wednesday, February 21, 1979 â€" Page 7 $ o4« Life will undoubtedly continue on in the two small hamlets, with the residents adjusting to their new enâ€" vironments. In each case, their lands now covered in the winter by.sfiow and in the summer by a mixture of grass and n’;%:ure, will soon pay the high price of prosperity. y‘ll still get the snow in winter, but concrete will cover the grass. And they will all learn the phrase that strikes fear into the hearts of manure spreaders throughout the region: stoop and scoop! herd tf 12 thousand tails on his halfâ€"acre ranch on the outskirts of Costain Minor, says he doesn‘t know how Kitchener counci} will view his contribution to the city‘s population trend. But the prospect of starting all over again undT a new political protectorate is not one he welcomes. According to Mr. Haddit, his family has been afflicted with the problem since the middle ages, when ancestors living in Alsaceâ€"Lorraine alterâ€" nated every other generation under French and Gerâ€" man rule. Becoming fed up with this militant program of bilingualism, the Haddits moved to the new world and settled in Waterloo. Mr. Haddit said he isn‘t sure what language they speak in Kitchener; his family speaks English and a little French Immersion. He did say that last October he heard some tourists from the Ok'fi&rfest celebrations speaking to one another in a Watefloo hotel, but he couldn‘t understand a word they were saying. | _ . _ s _ lies living in unbelievably decrepit quarters, using all available rags to slow down cold winter drafts around doors and windows, trying to keep warm and fuel costs down. The elderly often have a bit of wisdom to share. One lady in Waterloo‘s Park Street recalled hard times many years ago. . **We paid all our debts and put money in the bank. Our first sale was eight dozen @ .29 a pair.‘"‘ Sometimes people are confused about the various levels of government â€" and even by the similar names of prominent people! _ **When we couldn‘t get a job, my friend and I took to selling ‘ladies‘ panties and stuff‘ from Elmira to Haâ€" milton. Try borrowing $20,000 from Anne Murray, who touts for a Canadian bank, with no interest. Her look would shrivel your gizzard. Try borrowing from a "finance company‘‘ without pledging your grandmother‘s bones for fertilizer in case you can‘t meet the deadâ€" line. We are surrounded by usurers, sucking the blood out of us. Maybe Shakespeare was right. Line up all the bank managers in Canada, shoot them quietly, and burn the presidents of banks and finance companies at the stake. I‘d enjoy that They run all the way from our banks, among our most respected institutions, down to our finance comâ€" panies, so called, among our less respected instituâ€" tions, all the way to the hood in Montreal who will lend you money at 100 per cent interest, and break your knees with a baseball bat if you don‘t pay up. And I began thinking about usury, in its pejorative (that means nameâ€"calling) sense, in our society today. Is it shameful to be a usurer? Is usury someâ€" thing to be hidden under the rug? Are there any penalâ€" ties \for usury? Answer: no. * Our modern usurers are not even ashambed of what they do. They advertise it in all the media. Anyway. The whole thing got me thinking of usury. This was once an honest term meaning interest on money loaned. It has since come to mean charging exâ€" cessive interest on money loaned. A dirty business. In Elizabethan England, usury was a crime, and heavily punished. Right up to the death penalty, deâ€" pending on whom you knew, in the right circles. chaps.) And that Will Shakespeare knew his law. He was continually involved in litigation, like many a playwright. A great (to me) line in one of his plays goes, "Let‘s hang all the lawyers." (Continued on page 10)