CORRESPONDENCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 134, 9 June 1925, Page 12

CORRESPONDENCE.

RIVERHEAD HOMESTEAD AREA (To the Editor.) Sir, —1 road with interest the suggestion that the above area should be handed to the Forestry Service for afforestation, and, while 1 agree that a good deal of the land is only suitable for tree-growing, there is a good proportion of it in small and larger areas which—as the land is all within 20 miles of the largest centre in the Dominion — should be reserved for citrus culture, grapes, passions, early potatoes, and other crops which require frost-free land. There is at least one part of the area, which was old puriri land, that is of fair quality, and other areas arc composed of light loams on a porous clay loam subsoil, which will respond quickly to culture and manure. None of this land is more than five or six miles from railway or water communication, and is as good as thousands of acres which are being profitably farmed. It is. of course, not poor man's land, and if the Stale is to get it brought in at an early date assistance must be given, but such assistance would be a profitable undertaking. Thpre is, of course, more than half of it that should go into forest trees. But it is a question whether it would not be better in the hnnds of a local body with assistance from the State—say, the Waitemata Power Board—who could use it to grow hard woods on the suitable lands for the extension and replacement of their transmission poles and other timbers. Hundreds of acres of the ploughable parts of the reserve in question would grow the very best macrocarpas—one of the finest hard woodi and transmission timbers wo possess — while some areas would grow a selection of eucalypts suitable to the soil and the future needs. The balance of the very broken land could go into pinus radiata, which would make rapid growth and provide clean, straight, soft wood in reasonable time.—l am, etc., RAKAU RATA. THE LIBERAL MISSION. (To the Editor.) Sir, —Mr. P. J. O'Regan is reported in Saturday's "Star" as declaring his hostility to the idea of a fusion between the Reform and Liberal parties, or to be exact between the politicals claiming to represent those parties. As one of '"the-men-in-thc-street" who do not profess any party affiliation, I can understand Mr. O'RegaVs view, knowing that he has always been opposed to the forces of reaction, or Toryism, which arc now clustered around" the Government party and have been in the ascendancy for some years; but in all frankness I would like to ask whether the Liberal party, as it is reflected in the Liberal politicians, can "fill the bill?" Can it identify itself with the aspirations of that portion of the voters that looks for the bettering of the conditions of existence, the raising of the level of intelligence by the diffusion of knowledge, and the evolving of a race of New Zealanders that physically and intellectually will equal anything in the world and be superior to most ?

In recent days the whole programme of Liberalism, as expressed in preelection propaganda, has been "back to Seddon." , The idea of a progressive party going backwards is absurd; Scddon may have served his day and generation, but a new generation has arisen that knows not Seddon and is faced witli its own problems which are vastly different from those that Seddon's party had to solve. I would say that what the majority of people in this country want is not a party with a past but a party with a future. Hugging ghosts of a political past and inviting the majority of the electorate to imitate the same practice is a futility when 10 per cent of our population is dropping below the subsistence level, and the hard-won legislative reforms of a previous day are being abolished and a mockery made of the cardinal element of democracy-government by the people. When Ballance broke through the "Hindenburg line" of reaction and made possible the later gains of Liberalism his party stood for several things:—Adult suffrage as a means of wresting political power from a landocracy; a land policy calculated to prevent in this new country the evils of a system that had become petrified in the United Kingdom, and which virtually separated the people in those lands from the use of the soil, except at an impossible tribute; it stood for a free, secular and compulsory education that would eliminate sectarianism and kill the hates of a 1000 years; for interference in the custom, sanctioned by practice, of an employer dealing with his employees as he chose; and for an antijingoism combined with the government of New Zealand by people in New Zealand and not by people elsewhere. If Liberalism of to-day wishes to hold the loyalty of the masses, as did the Liberalism of the late nineties, it should stand as far ahead of the present day Tory as the Liberalism of that prior date was in advance of the Toryism of its era. Does it? "The seven devils of Socialism" were not Labour men but Liberals, and recently we have heard the late Mr. Massey denounced as a Bolshevist for introducing State control of the sale of-meat, butter, honey and fruit, but no one lias risen to denounce the Liberal party for being ahead ol the present times. It is quite possible that the bulk of people may not sanction the suggested "fuse," whether the flux is or is not preferential voting in single-member electorates; quite possibly a really progressive party would be welcomed as no party has been welcomed in 30 years. If the Liberal party refuses to eliminate itself by committing political iiarikari for an alleged principle of anti-Labour-ism can it fill the bill?—I am, etc., T. AVALSH. MENTAL HOSPITAL REFORM. (To the Editor.) Sir, —There is one particular in the matter of mental hospital reform that i ftnd the new doctor has overlooked, if lie wishes to keep up the good reputation that the female nurses have previously been credited with, he would oe better to carry on in the old way n?rt a i" OW the min S lin g of nurses and attendants in the wards. I have not been asked myself to enter a ward "here male attendants are engaged, but I know, and have been engaged in conversation with nurses whVCve" and work ' T? c thej ; hearti 'r deteai the Th S lB male -attendants treat them as though they have no idea of the various tasks, and altogether as their mferiors. The patients in the" intelligent moments do not appreciate the change and nearly always the nurses have to call on the men f or ass i g t ance 8 even in the most simple tasks. It is certain that the work cannot be as efficient under the new arrangement and I trust that the superintendent will' quickly realise this and revert to the earlier system.—l am, etc., • - HOPEFUL. '