THE YEAR REVIEWED

Press, Issue 22599, 3 January 1939, Page 5

THE YEAR REVIEWED

TO TH* EDITOR OE THE PRES*. Sir, —The old year which has just passed away makes us mourn to think that the prosperity which we have air ready enjoyed might, according to the gloomy prognostication of H. Bliss, never be realised again. This, of course, is a very melancholy way of looking toward the future, but my purpose here is not altogether to speak of the future by comparison Vith what has already passed, but to review the year 1938 impartially. H. Bliss commiserates me for my blind faith in our Socialist Government. He also points out

to the unemployed (if there are any) my inability to produce facts which tend to deprecate the operations of the Labour Party before their eyes. It is a culpable error to say that I avoid facts. I cannot avoid making mention of what is inevitable. H. Bliss is completely wrong in making such a statement. Let him look back over the last four years and deny tha.t New Zealand has shared to the full an uninterrupted prosperity never before known in the history of the Dominion. Does H. Bliss think he is writing to people of no higher intelligence than mob thought, or who are given to fits of sleeping sickness? Does he consider the truth and acknowledgement of our prosperity, of our advancement and the recognition of, other nations as chimerical with no more substance than is to be found in a dream? This is what H. Bliss calls avoiding facts. Instead of hiding truth, I bring it forward in the full light of day. From one end of New Zealand to the other the last four years are acknowledged as the best years ever known since New Zealand became a nation. He would continue his deprecation of the present Government by pointing out blunders where blunders do not exist. He complains that the Cabinet did not place the financial position before the country before the election. Here H. Bliss shows a great -amount of jealousy. He is here complaining of being over-ridden by a superior intelligence to his own detriment. He speaks of national disasters and insolvencies which never have occurred and never will occur. He admits the Minister for Finance made a present of £150,000 to the consumers —sufficient proof to show that there was not the least shadow of insolvency. Then why does H. Bliss hold up to the people New Zealand as being in a state of insolvency and bankruptcy? If H. Bliss considers himself so smart a man why does he not take on the government of the country and become a dictator.

The Hon. H. T. Armstrong, while Minister for Labour, did his best to absorb the unemployment question. No man could have done more. He is to be highly commended for his unremitting services during his term of office. H. Bliss appears to be a man looking for miracles, whereas he should look only for human possibilities. The third mistake he makes out is the Minister for ’Public Works setting a standard wage for farm workers. Does H. Bliss think it humane that farm hands should tramp the paddocks all day through dust and dirt for a mere pittance? ,He thinks I am alarmed at the prospect of increased taxation. Not at all. I assure H. Bliss that I have, like thousands of other people, every confidence in our present Government and wish it every success in its endeavours to promote the welfare of this Dominion. H. Bliss gives us but nine months to be or not to be. So let us be up and doing and frustrate the plans of those whp would nail us down to tyranny and oppression.—Yours, etc., W. MOSDELL. January 2, 1939.