AFTER BARCELONA

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22636, 15 February 1939, Page 17

AFTER BARCELONA

to the varro* or the teem Sir, —What blinds certain correspondents? The issue is clear. Either the forces getting more than their share of production give to those who want, or those in want will take what they need. Seen within these alternatives, those (Spain) in need made a redistribution by purely legal means, and those with plenty rebelled against even a recognition conceded everywhere else, except in Fascist countries, that the poor need not be so poor. As put forward by one of the correspondents 89,000 Communists could not start a revolution. They did not The poverty of the Spanish masses Was beyond endurance. But international capital will not brook interference with its preserves. The British section was no exception. It did not want any other than Franco to win. No further proof is needed than the antics of the Non-Intervention Committee to find excuses for bombings and breaches of non-intervention by the Italian and German Governments. Yours, etc., GORDON WRIGHT. Greymouth, February 11, 1939. CThis correspondence is now closed.— Ed., “The Press.”]

HOT-WIRE FENCES to the BorroE or the pebm Sir,—ln “The Press” of to-day is a report of a resolution, passed at a meeting of the general committee of the Canterbury Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, disapproving of electrified stock fences. How sad it is to see intelligent people, self-appointed judges, passing a resolution which proves the depth of their ignorance. As a matter of clear, cold fact the electric fence, properly erected and energised, is the most humane fence the world has yet seen for horses and cattle. One or two shocks Cor contacts), and they will never attempt to jump ,or break through the single “hot” wire fence. They will graze right up to and even under the single wire; but touch it? Not on your life! . Now, for our friends’ information, the other side of the story. Take an average farm with average fences, depending. as most of them do, on the barbed wire on top or even on two barbed wires alone. Strawberry decides that the oat crop next door contains more vitamin - A than her present diet. Result—a two-by-nalf-mch gash in one or more teats from the barbed wire as she goes through, and perhaps a prod behind from a pitchfork to make her go back. How would our friends like the job of squeezing quarts of milk through these teats daily for a month or more? Cruelty? I’ll say it is. Many a good horse, too, has been shot because of terrible in- • juries from the ordinary barb and ■ plain. I .use my own electric fences ■ mainly to keep the stock away from . the old ones. I have every sympathy i with the aims of the society; but in this case it is “thumbs downs.” —Yours, ! etC “ FARMYARD DUST. Ashburton. February 11, 1939.*