CORRESPONDENCE

Press, Issue 16678, 12 November 1919, Page 10

CORRESPONDENCE

VACUITY OF MIND. AND SOUL. tO THE EDITOR OF "THB FKISS." Sir, —When you repeated the abovp words you were perhaps mindful oF a "Punch'' picture. Old Jarge is depicted sitting at the village tavern bench with a large mug handy, and, in reply to a passing enquiry he says, "Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimfes I just sits." There may be vacuity of mind, but never of soul. — Yours, etc., S.P.M. IMPORTATION OF AUSTRALIAN FRUIT TREES. TO THE EDITOR OT 'THE PRESS." Sir, —Let's get right down to essentials. Mr Longton says that the Fruitgrowers' Association received several complaints from persons unable to purchase stone-fruit trees for the past season's planting. The actual total quantity asked for, and unable to be supplied (in Canterbury) was under 3000 trees, of varieties for which previously there was little clem and. The bulk of these trees were required by two different parties for speculative planting, and on this account Mr Longton wants New Zealand flooded with Australian trees, at present excluded on account of disease.

Consider the other side for a moment. One of Canterbury's largest nursery firms has been paving out approximately £230 per week in wages, another over £100 per week, and a third firm over £50. Investigation shows an unusually large proportion of returned soldiers on v thcso staffs, in one case 50 per cent., and in anotnei 40 per cent. Consider, also, that nursery firms employ their maximum staffs in winter, when little other labour is offering. Is it in the public interest to sacrifice these •firms for the benefit of a disgruntled few?

While the Industries Committee is recommending the Government to subsidise shipping to carry trees to South America, and so relieve the congestion here, the clique who have temporary control of the Fruitgrowers' Association want to make matters worse by allowing Australian dumping. Mr Wvatt, president of the Fruitgrowers' Association, also writes in favour of lifting the embargo. Mr Wvatt iB not a fruitgrower. He represents the speculative element.—Yours, etc., SUPPORT LOCAL INDUSTRY. November 11th.

TO THS EDITOR OF "THB PRESS." j Sir, —To confirm the taken by Mr Longton in regard to the re-im-portation of Australian trees, I wish to mention the fact of a certain firm in Otago who tried to procure 300 trees of peach, apricot, and Jap. plums, last ( July, and were unsuccessful after trying all the leading nurserymen of the North and South Islands of New Zealand. Further, this client left, the varieties open in tirder that it might easier be fulfilled. Growers of peaches know that the districts of New Zealand are very limited for the successful production of that luscious fruit, and, further, that the life of the same tree* is short compared to apples and pears, and it is absolutely necessary to keep on planting at short intervals in order l o ensure a continuous supply of fruit. Now, I would ask, how is that to be accomplished if we cannot supply the trees? Are the public and fruitgrowers content to sit still and say nothing? I would suggest that a deputation of stone-fruit growers and others interested wait on the Director of New Zealand Horticulture, and solicit his help in having the embargo removod. I understand this officer visited Australia sometime ago, and after a careful insertion of nurseries and orchards fnilfind any specified disease detriments to the welfare and growth of Australian . *rees. The same trees hoincr pbnted by the hundreds of thonnil over Australia. This same crentleman pave the Australian niirservmeu to understand that on his arrival in New Zealand he would endeavour to have the e"ibar<?o removed. However, we were Th the thi"k of the wnr, "jnd evervthine unside down, and The time inourortnne for carrying out his suggested promise.—Yonr«! pfc. JAMES HILL.

SOCIALISM. TO TUB EDITOR OF "THT? PRESS." Sir, —Our plausible friends the Scciallsts have started their election campaign, and crowds of the Great Unthinking gather round them at their meetings, standing with open mouths listening to words with a small amount of wisdom but more, of superstitious hope ir- them. "lis easy to get such a crowd in any city, just as easy as any* quack medicine vendor gathers one in the market place during a fair. All he needs to seli his ''elixir" is a gathering of men, and with an easy tongue lie quickly disposes of his elixir for asthma, toothache, lumbago, or corns,

hard and soft. All canbe cured out of the samo bottle for a shilling and plenty ; of faith. j j Socialism, we are told, is the one nncl j ! only remedy for all the evils poor ' world is now afHicted with. Listen! Voters, listen! to their words, or, if unable to do so. read their speeches out. of your "Press ' at breakfast, and you will soon perceive that they condemn what they do not understand. Their chief objection is to commerce carried on by men individually as units in a ; State, all, however, working with their special talents in a thousand different ways for the common weal. They wish to stifle tliese God-given gifts and to ma.ke us work as slaves to a State, bo it good or bad. Some of them need better memories than they posses?, as what they condemn for individuals they applaud for the State. Sound loaic is evidently not a socialistic gift. They want to undo, all the cood civilisation has brought to the world during the pa ft nineteen centuries, and all the high ideals of a Christian society are to be thrown to the winds by a set of men who know no more of success for their mad scheme than a gambler knows of the dice-box, for there are long, and very long, chances against the success of this compulsory, and secular Sialism. With the awful excesses of the French revolutionary Bolshevism, r and nearer home our Red Fed. miners "profiteering out of us, I only can hope that before election f'nj voters will pause and tbink. — Yours, etc., W. H. SAXBY. Christchurch, November Bth.