CORRESPONDENCE.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 251, 22 October 1919, Page 10

CORRESPONDENCE.

THE PRICE OF RICE. (To the Editor.) Sir, —Why all this bother about rice? Surely we can live for a few months without it, especially when we remember that every spoonful we eat means that much less for the people whose staple food it is and who grow it. It seems to mo like robbing a blind hen of a worm and then grumbling because she lias not another. Better far petition the Government to prohibit the importation for six months.—l am, etc., 5/320. SOUTH AFRICA AND THE NAVY. (To the Kclttor.l Sir.—The heading of a cablegram indicating South Africa was discontinuing the naval contribution was most misleading, as the contribution to the Navy by the South African Government has not been stopped. The matter referred to in the cablegram was simply a motion passed at a congress of the irreconcilable Boers under the leadership ot General Ilertzog, and has nothing to do with the actual Government of the South African Union.—l am, etc., .1. VOCK. ELECTRIC POWER FOR AUCKLAND. (To the KUitor.l Sir,—l see by the papers that several local bodies are contemplating genenit- | ing electric power ill their own respective districts. Such a system is both out of I date and expensive. 1 venture an opinion that if the Trnm Company and I the Auckland electric supply were nut iv existence, they would not have their mipplv station in Auckland. However desirable in itself it cannot economically meet the requirements of the future. The study of electricity in this country is, irv.iiii'arutively speaking, in its infancy. It may be well to set out sonic of the con Mitions governing a cheap supply: (1) Combined generation Within suitable areas. (21 Well-situated stations having regurd to condensing water, fuel, anil distance from consumers. CI) Modern und large units of generating plant. (4) t'niform standards of system, frei quency and pressure. if local bodies are going to generate their own electricity, they will have an expensive and patchwork system which should be avoided. Nature has endowed New Zealand with material and facilities for generating cheap electric power. (1) Water power is the cheapest. |2| Suction gas next, only up to a limited power. (3) Compound condensing steam engine. Let us consider our water supply from the. Waikato River. From the Huka Falls to the Narrows at Hamilton the same water can be utilised several times. It should be. the duty of the Government to instruct their paiu experts to furnish a report stating the amjunt of power likely to be obtained from the Waikato source*, and it should be the duty of local bodies to get that information before entering into any expensive scheme of their own. If the report shows there would be sufficient powar to supply the wants of the whole of tie Waikato and Thames districts, and sufficient fur the wants to the north of tie Waikato. that should settle the matter as far aa local bodies are concernedOn the other hand, what would be the next best system? We have Huntly, with an unlimited supply of coal, also an unlimited supply of water from the Waikato for condensing purposes, where tens of thousands of horse-power can be generated ami transmitted by overhead wires to where it is required, thereby saving the continual cost of trains, cartage, wastage and other charges. My opinion is that all local bodies concerned should combine to adopt a system of concentration of power. It should be fully recognised that cheap electrical power is a matter of great importance, and will in the future be essential to the industrial progress of this country. — 1 am, etc., G. F.LLIS. MR. ISITT AND RACING. ;'l'n the Editor.) >Sir, —1 am receiving so many protests from all parts of the Dominion on the supposition that I said that every man and woman that attends a race meeting or a trot is a blackguard that, however mad fhe notion is that any sane man could hold so extreme a position, I had better make clear what I did say and what was in my mind. To begin with, I acknowledge some clumsiness of expression,'but submit that when a man is speaking in a hostile atmosphere and amid a hail of gibes and interjections it is not easy to express oneself with the. precision one commands under ordinary circumstances. Retorting on the claim that a country race meeting is a mere farmers' picnic, I said that the racing fraternity streamed in hundreds from the towns to the country meetings, and that the modern racecourse was "a nest of blackguardism"—it would have been better to have said ''a school of blackguardism." That thousands of better men than I ever hope to be attend race meetings 1 know—many of whom never bet. That there are -honest owners, trainers, and jockeys goes without saying; but I hold that, instead of racing being a game on which some men will gamble as they ■will gamble on football, ■cricket, and every other sport, it has ■become a huge gambling machine that exists by and for the encouragement of gambling; that with so many of its supporters sport is a secondary matter tlia-t, minus the gambling, the sport would collapse. Consequently all soils of crooked jobs are rife. Constant temptation to owners, trainers, and jockeys to sell the public is inseparable from the system, and every society undesirable who wants to live by his wits rather than his labour, every loafer, spieler, and ne'er-do-well, gravitates to the racecourse a 6 flies to a honey pot, while the gambling spirit racing is instilling into all classes is not only a 6crious financial handicap and cause of commercial inefficiency, but is demoralising the men and women of this Dominion in a way that should alarm and distress everyone who lores this country and desires the future good and happiness of its people. Ido not want men to think that I am either fool or pharisee cfiough to deem every man who differs from mc on this subject a blackguard, but I believe that the rapid growth and magnitude of this evil presents a very serious problem, ami I want no one to vote for my return to the House without a full understanding that so long as 1 am there I will do all the miserable little I can do to diminish the gambling evil.—l am, etc.. LEONAiRD M. ISITT.