The ODD ANGLE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 230, 29 September 1942, Page 2

The ODD ANGLE

(By MacCLURE.)

• THERE'S ALWAYS BEEN A WAR OX

.There have always been wars, and there always will be—if not between rival groups of Powers or single nations, then between neighbours, local councillors, hospital boards and families. Somebody will always have a grievance and insist on taking it out on someone else. When we can do without a national police force we are well on the way to establishing an international one to put down disturbers of the world's peace. Once this fact is thoroughly understood the next will be better understood—that national defence spells national security—and should come first. You'll notice they seldom employ a dustman to run our post office. The idea at the back of their minds is. of course, that a dustman, | fine fellow though he be, can have little idea of the complexity of the great task of running our Post and Telegraph Department. True, he could have a shot at it—he may even have latent talent in that line, but as a rule it is more the job for a man thoroughly versed in such things. Now national defence should be like that—to my mind anyway. For a local greengrocer M.P., a cobbler M P., an auctioneer M.P. (and others of like callings) to meet behind closed doors and O.K. the nation's war effort may be all right if the particular war is limited to the greengrocery, cobbling or auctioneering and such-like businesses. In their own chosen vocations we would then concede that they were wiser than thc rest of us.

• THE GOSPEL—IN PRACTICE

I'm neither a psalm singer nor a wov.'ser. but. I clearly realise that the Gospel of Jesus "has the wood" on any system devised by Major Douglas. Johnny Lee, our own Peter, Mr. Mulholland or Mr. Hollard. Realising that. I cannot for tne life of me see why some of that Oospel isn't put into practice. The "lower orders" would love it—thev might even help swell the congregations of even our more fashionable churches—l hope I'm in order in using the term "fashionable" in regards to any church? One of, if not the greatest paradox I can conceive of is the conversion to real Christianity of the congregations of the aforesaid churches—"fashionable" and otherwise. I know hundreds—l might even be justified in saying thousands—of returned men alone, who, too old to work, are, with their wives, eking out a truly poverty-stricken existence on the pitifully inadequate dole'a not-so-generous Government hands them on pension day. Proportionately, strange as it may sound, they are paying a much higher sum into the Treasury out of their miserly pittance. This may not convey the idea that the Gospel of Jesus carries much weight; it's not intended to. It doesn't—not in our social scheme. • OUR SOCIAL. WAR "We're not discussing the war from the military angle," our little parson cobber said when these points were discussed just before the Christian Order gathering last night—"at any rate, I'm not. I'm only concerned for the moment about the social side of it—as it affects us, right now. It doesn't seem to have dawned upon the Cabinet that the morale of our boys in camp and on service is. and must be, affected by the conditions under which their own parents live. Take the boys who are the sole support of their mothers —what satisfaction is it to them to hear from the 8.8.C. that the people in the occupied territories are short of all sorts of things when they know that, through lack of foresight, their own parent, or parents, are feling the effects of shortages at home? I pointed out that Cabinet could not be blamed for all of this.

"I didn't say they were to blame for the shortage—but I do say, and anyone with common sense knows, that anyone with a big income long ago laid in a stock of sugar by the bag. petrol, clothing, tea by the chest— everything that was likely to be rationed. I won't and cannot say we have had any evidence of a leakage of information about forthcoming moves in the way of rationing, but its common knowledge that the poorer-paid wage-earner and the old age pensioners have been properly caught napping—and therefore it is on them that tne increased prices are falling. Do you know of any old age pensioners who had sufficient to lay in a bag or two of sugar, a dozen packets of tobacco or half a dozen pairs of socks? You don't and I don't. The poor and the near-poor are compelled to buy hand-to-mouth. You don't see some people tripping round after two ounces of tea, or have you?" No, I haven't as yet. And I cannot believe any member's wife makes the rounds for her 12 ounces of sugar—but then I wouldn't know.