Correspondents' Correspondence

...New York on the Brink New York--The city has often cried wolf at budget time, but this year, officials say, it's the real thing Besides the steady rise in operating expenses because of inflation, there are new contracts to be negotiated with the police, firemen and sanitation men--none of whom are in a mood to settle cheaply Meanwhile, projected revenues are not materializing because of the general economic slowdown With the red ink flowing, something's got to give besides the city's credit rating Administrators are looking for places to pull in the belt But the high-level "voluntary" pay cuts recently announced by Mayor John Lindsay were mere window dressing, more widespread salary reductions could hardly be tolerated by the civil service unions Some sort of cutbacks in services would therefore appear to be the only solution The question is where Cutting nonessential yet highly visible services is consistent with Lindsay's continuing psychodrama to gain outside aid Reducing library hours or eliminating some cultural presentations, however, will save only a negligible amount of money The big-ticket items--welfare, police, sanitation, education--offer the most potential for savings, but can least sustain budget trimming The sanitation department, for example, is so bard-pressed that last summer, in an amazing bit of doubletalk, officials announced that service in some boroughs was actually going to be improved by decreasing the number of scheduled garbage pickups Translation Since they could not meet existing schedules, sanitation men were forced to skip around irregularly, the department reasoned that more feasible (i.e., reduced) schedules would mean more regular, and therefore better, service Gotcha, chief Welfare is a giant chunk of the budget, but the economic slowdown is bringing a steady flow of new clients to the rolls, and inflation is rendering the payments increasingly insufficient Further, it can be argued that efforts to cut welfare are likely, one way or another, to increase the costs of police work Police'7 Much of the city already verges on paranoia, and demands are for more cops, if anything What about schools, or transportation, or the fire department9 If services that make for some of the amenities of city Me are cut, this will only hasten the flow of the middle class to the suburbs, leaving the city to the poor, who require the highest level of services and generate the least taxable income There seems to be no solution at the city level, the real keys are held in Washington and Albany Richard Nixon and Nelson Rockefeller, though, do not view John Lindsay with anything that could be described as affection It may well be that neither the President nor the Governor will mount a dramatic financial rescue If no one from the outside steps m and pays the bills, what will the city do9 My friend from the budget bureau toyed with his coffee cup "I wonder what it would mean," he said at last, "for a major city to declare bankruptcy "--Harvey D Shapiro The Heath Image London--Through the summer months, the course of the Conservative leadership remained unclear Was Ted Heath going to the Right, or to the Left...

...Or was he, as I suggested in these pages ("Tory Trimmers," NL, September 7), going to prove an opportunistic pseudoliberal, content to make consensus-like noises and carry on the old routine9 Six months after the general election, Heath's policy can finally be seen for what it is a counterrevolution against those welfare-state, "Butskellite" assumptions that have dominated Britain since the end of the War Heath had said he would give Britain a good, stiff dose of capitalist medicine, and that is exactly what he is doing--or at any rate trying to do Piofitable sections of the nationalized industries (steel, airlines, railways, gas) are to be sold off to private enterprise--which wild enable the Tories to argue very convincingly m the next campaign that nationalized industries can never operate at a profit Charges are also to be instituted for school meals and milk, visits to the dentist or doctor, prescriptions, and the public museums True, sixpence in the pound is to be knocked off income fax But it has not taken the Labor statisticians long to figure out that with the above measures, and with the rapid increase in prices, one will have to earn over 3,000 pounds ($7,200) a year--that is, be a member of the middle class--to get much joy out of life under Ted Heath Fixed-income people, especially pensioners, will be decidedly worse off despite some remedial measures In short, the Tory program is frank class legislation, the rich will get richer, the poor poorer In addition, something totally unexpected has emerged to trouble Britain, something many even assumed did not exist the Prime Minister's personality Certainly, the office changes the man--he grows more confident and, usually, mellower Yet while Heath has surely shown signs of greater confidence, there is little to indicate a mellowing Rather, it has become evident that he is a very stubborn man, and that as difficulties crowd in on him his impulse is to be more obstinate still I use the word "stubborn"--implying strong if sometimes unsound convictions--advisedly Ted Heath may be right in thinking the British are looking for a strong, clear leader although this posture contradicts his own declared politics (He has proclaimed, of course, that what the country needs is less government and not more ) Then again Heath's stubbornness may proceed from weakness, since he is potentially a very vulnerable man For five years in opposition he suffered the humiliation that his standing in the polls was always much below Harold Wilson's, and even below that of his own party As Prime Minister he continues to be subject to constant attack from Enoch Powell, whom he apparently fears And the policies he is pursuing are bound to bring him a bad spell of electoral unpopularity Half a dozen lost by-election seats could make a mockery of Heath's majority, and his only recourse would be a dangerous leap in the dark--a fresh election in the Spring The "tough" image may work Inflation may be held back, massive wage increases like that sought by the electrical workers may be successfully resisted, and Britain may get into the Common Market on satisfactory terms But if Heath's obstinacy is a substitute for policy, if it is indeed a facade hiding real doubt and weakness, it could cost the nation dear The mass of British people has never voted for Socialism as such, nor have they shown any sign of wanting to return to Manchester-style capitalism The purists, in other words, have always been a very small minority In deserting the middle ground, long the primary source of support for both Tories and Labor, Heath may be taking a bold and admirable step But as he must know, he is risking the people deserting him once his policies begin to be felt--John Mander Drugs in Japan Tokyo--Authorities are alarmed at the increase in marijuana traffic, but what little drug culture may exist in Japan can hardly be said to have grass roots According to Health and Welfare Ministry statistics, of 265 persons arrested for marijuana possession in the first half of this year, 149 were foreigners--80 per cent of them Americans Visiting students or servicemen accounted for a large number of the arrests "The stuff comes in from Vietnam, Okinawa or Korea," said a GI here on R&R (rest and recreation) "Mostly grass, a little lsd, most of the guys use it themselves " Some, however, have become involved with Japanese narcotics rings When R&R flights from Vietnam were discontinued last October, a major underworld source of drugs was pretty much dried up The difficulty of smuggling drugs into this island country, and the tough sentences administered even to first offenders, severely limits their use by the Japanese Since the police labeled lsd a drug last February, for instance, there have been only 12 oases of possession, in which a total of 71 pills were confiscated--all bootlegged from Okinawa or Europe Police report that pushers get $10-20 for one lsd tablet, and a joint of grass goes for about $2 75 But neither the high prices nor the stiff sentences are as significant an inhibitor as local mores Unlike the U S, where "turning on" is apparently becoming an increasingly acceptable middle-class custom, drug use still carries a considerable social stigma in Japan The one permissible excess is alcohol, widely accepted as a necessary way of releasing the tension of business and personal life (The number of alcoholics, incidentally, has risen 400 per cent in the last 16 years) The relatively few "heads" in Japan spurn pot and acid, preferring to turn on with the less expensive and legally obtainable paint thinner and pep pills In the warm months of the year, the young dropouts can be seen near Shinjuku Station, breathing deeply from clear plastic bags filled with thinner-soaked cotton Several coffee shops and bars in the Shinjuku and Akasaka night-life districts cater to heads Japan's more traditional heads, meanwhile, are gradually disappearing "Opium cases," said a police official, "total only 71 this year, and we have virtually no heroin use at all"--Michael Berger...