IN THE PUBLIC MIND.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 174, 25 July 1928, Page 6

IN THE PUBLIC MIND.

OYSTER SUPPLY.

STATE ENTERPRISE AND LOCAL SHORTAGE.

(To the Editor.) The recent statement by Mr. Hefford chief inspector of fisheries, that it would be a EOO< i season for oysters this year has proved to be rather optimistic. One has only to go to the depot to reaLise the breakdown" of the supply of oysters to the city. The notice "Sold Out" is very often seen, and a dealer thinks himself very lucky if he pets one sack out of an order of ten. The city of Auckland and countv could consume one thousand sacks a week. The promised supply was five hundred, which has only once been fulfilled. The irregularity makes it impossible for the dealers to = suppfy regular customers. There is a strong feelint among business men at the unfair competition of the State and bureaucratic interference with private enterprise. But the climax i 3 reached by the State oyster monopoly, which will not even allow a private individual to stow oysters for his own consumption, and permits miles of foreshore which could be made productive to lie idle. This is more noticeable when it can be shown the oysters under State control are a failure. In 1918 nearly eleven thousand sacks were picked. The production steadilv fell to under six thousand in 1926. This is a fall of over six hundred sacks a year. At Port Stephens, one of Xew South Wales' many small estuaries, the production of oysters under private cultivation increased from 3448 sacks in 1918 to 10,381 in 1925, an average increase of slightly less than one thousand sacks a vear. The increase alone from one estuary in seven years was more than Auckland's total supply for the 1926-27 season. It has been urged on the department that the oysters should be graded, to allow a private individual or dealer to buy the quality he requires. INTERESTED.

THE WHANGAREI TRAGEDY.

I think every one of your readers were appalled by the "Fate of an Immigrant" at recorded in Saturday's "Star." I have sent a copy home to "John Bull," with a request that the true conditions should be made known. There is not enough employment for Xew Zealanders, so why delude the innocent at Home ? JUSTICE.

"IS IT NOTHING TO ALL YE THAT PASS BY?"

The tragedy described in your columns on Saturday evening last concerning the forlorn tramp who died within the gates of our cultured civilisation and Christianity on the lonely Xorth Road, near Whangarei, deserves more than passing notice. The whole circumstances of his life this last few months, and of his pitiless death, arraign before the bar of common decency our smug complacency, our vaunted wealth, and our proud veneer. To suggest that he is anything other than our own making, or the product of our own handiwork, is to deny transparent facts. As an employer of labour I am a part of a system which has thrust this unfortunate traveller on the cruel rocks of our own building. As a member of organised Christianity, I am guilty of an inhuman rejection of all that is fundamental in the programme of Christ, whose name I am supposed to bear, and whose example I am. supposed to follow. The famous Dr. Guthrie once said: "Religion walks in golden slippers, on the sunny side of the street." That statement was made early in last centurv. Are we nearer the heart of truth to-dav? G.G.

BOYS FOR FARMS.

Does Mr. E. Yates know anything about the country and farm life generally in Xew Zealand? lam afraid not, otherwise he would not have said that unemployment among our own boys is largely because of them not going into the country to seek work. How many fanners can afford to employ men, and how many people will take up farms when thev can barely live? It is a crying shame to think that our own brothers, born and reared in the country, expert milkers, shearers, fencers and farm hands generally, are absolutely forced to go to the towns. The mother and son who called on Mr. Yates were probably heartilv sick of country life. Both, I daresay, had had to work very hard, and after years of hard work were forced to '"walk off," as a few hundreds have had to do. IXDIGXAXT.

VICTIMISATION OF GIRLS.

The impassioned and telling letters of several of your correspondents treating of the victimisation of young girls make it very c i ear indeed that for the remedy of this evil there is only one logical course; put women (or even one woman) into Parliament. There they, must be heard, and the long years of battling to raise the age of consent from sixteen years to eighteen should then be ended. J. A. MIDDLEBROOK.

DOUBLE EMPLOYMENT.

u ® e P ar ding complaint made in th» Star about the casual and other work given to retired or superannuated people in preference to needy workers, another wav in which the unemployment difficulty is accentuated is the number of married women, with husbands earning good wages, who ar» quietly and tenaciously holding on to positions. Most people will agree that emplovers who encourage this sort of thing are not helping to alleviate the present stress. These women profess sympathy for the unemployed, but apparently are too selfish to respect the rights of competent breadwinners. This is not "the first time the subject has been ventilated in your columns, but a repetition of the point may yet strike the consciences of some women who have not realised the gravitv of the matter. ACTION.

VORONOFF IN ENGLAND.

We were informed by cable recentlv of M. Voronoff s visit to England, and certain details concerning the subject are now to hand. Dr. Voronoff i s Director of Experimental Surgery of the College de France, and Assistant Director of the Biological Laboratorv at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes, and he claims to have more than 300 "disciples" in various parts of the world; imitators of his researches and practice. In his "Study of Old Asp. and Method of Rejuvenation," he sav>: "There are thirty operations a month ' in Paris, and with equal demands from Vienna. Rome, Moscow, not to mention San Francisco, lokyo, and other world capitals, our <*reat problem is to create an adequate suni.lv." ' 'J? asserts: "I have had many nglishwomen than Frenchwomen (as patents). . They want to be able to hunt, and pla> golf and tennis and such things." \oronoff has lectured before the Cambridge HinJ i 7 Medl< ?' Society, his audience inclug arge numbers of undergraduates, and Stu f ent ? from Cirton and Xewuham. According to the -'Sunday Express." he has declared: It i s not beyond the bounds of emergen ' * time of - reat a government may make the T™ " co, upulsory." Voronoff load Um» T- h to le dee P est fl H*hs of materialtie human rr^? gent ° f Sata " ic a " ault upoll W.S.E,