LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22983, 1 April 1940, Page 12

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

TO CORRESPONDENTS Owing to the necessity for conserving space, correspondents are asked to make their letters as brief as possible. Only letters considered to be of outstanding importance may exceed 200 words.—Ed., “The Press.”

THE LATE PRIME MINISTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE PRESS. Sir, —I was greatly astonished to read the first letter in the correspondence column of Saturday’s issue, m which Mr L. D. Austin writes in a most objectionable way about vindictiveness, etc., toward the late Mr Savage, whose loss, it is almost safe to say, is deeply regretted by every man, woman, and child throughout the Dominion. My own impression was and is that the article in question, coming as it did from a political opponent, such as everybody knows “The Press” to be, was fair and even generous. It was quite amusing to read of your correspondent’s challenge to you and his belief that you would not have the courage to print his letter. I should like to pay a tribute to ’The Press” for th e great efficiency and speed with which it handles the news. On Wednesday morning last the paper, containing a complete full-page account of the deplorable event, including a long and most interesting lead- - ing article, was delivered to me out in the suburbs of Christchurch at 6 o'clock—just 2J hours after the time of our beloved Prime Minister’s death. This is an example of alertness and business-like efficiency which, I am sure,, it would be impossible to beat, in any part of the world.—Yours, etc.. GEORGE INGRAM. March 30, 1940. [We shall be obliged if readers will accept our view that Mr Austin’s protest against the article and Mr Ingram’s defence of it sufficiently illustrate this difference of opinion.—Ed., “The Press.”] COAL ECONOMICS TO THE EDITOR OP THE PRESS Sir, —A while back you printed a number of letters on the value of coal, and I would, as a life-long worker with that commodity, like tq add a few facts which I hope will interest your readers. First, despite the potential and varied uses of coal, nothing like the ■huge sum of £35,000,000 iwhich is the capital invested in hydro-electricity and its reticulation) has been spent on coal industries, primary, or secondary. It is high time for a much closer study to be made of coal and its uses, along with the present abuses. I am convinced that all our petrol needs in New Zealand can be obtained from New Zealand coal at a cost comparable with imported oils; but sea, rail, and road freights must be reduced by better methods. The problem of equality of taxation between gas and electricity must be settled somehow. The fact that fuei and light problems, such as gas, electricity, motor ■ fuels, smokeless fuels, process steam, hydro plants for base loads, gas turbine or steam for peak loads, tend to run in a cycle, where each is more or less the by-product of some other factor, suggests that the State should put fuel and light problems on trial ere more millions are spent on one portion, hydro-electricity. Even the new station at Tel —could not stand up to a prior claim if all the aspects of this problem were investigated. That haTf-million could do better work elsewhere Too much money is being spent on hydro-electricity to generate heat, a service for which it is not primarily suited. I give an English table of fuel values, which needs adjusting to New. -Zealand prices and further adjusting ■’’or. efficiency in use. However, it serves to demonstrate that, when millions are involved, pounds should be spent investigating and testing, and helping forward economy and service in general.

CHILDREN AND CENTENNIAL CELEBRATIONS TO THE EDITOB OF THE PRESS Sir,—l am surprised by the lack of imagination shown by those who have planned the children’s part in the , Christchurch Centennial celebrations. The children of to-day will this year pass a great milestone in their country’s growth. What pictures of its hundredth year will be printed indelibly on their minds as pleasant memories throughout their lives? Dunedin took some 10,000 children out to Wingatui and gave them, not physical jerks and a rather wearisome time of marching, etc., but a monster gala picnic. Let me quote you a few of the figures: 10.000 bottles of milk; .300 cases of fruit; 37,000 . ice-creams; 70,000 bars of chocolate; 10,000 lunches and 10,000 afternoon teas, each .one separately packed, and including for each child, an egg, a saveloy, a tomato, bread, buns, cake, and specially decorated biscuits: 10,000 bottles of lemonade; and 10.000 squares of silk printed as mementoes of the occasionThe 10,000 children were taken out in special trains, and the transoort job was through in 90 minutes; 20,000 adults also attended. The day’s programme included ballets and community sings, ventriloquists, conjurers, /bands, burlesque boxing between chimney sweeps and flourmillers. fancy dress parades, a fire brigade display, with a really burning building, and so on. It was all a free show for, the children, I might add. and what a day for them—a day as pleasurable as it will be memorable for all those_ 10.000 of them. Dunedin children will always remember the hundredth birthday of their nation as the greatest birthday party ever. Is Christchurch so very much inferior? Must it centennialise its children with wooden and unimaginative infliction rather than with affection?— Yours. etc.. BE GENEROUS. March 30. 1940. BRITISH GOVERNMENT AND ITS CRITICS TO THE EDITOR OF THE PRESS Sir,—ln replying to an address of welcome in London a few weeks ago, the captain of the Exeter said that during the monotonous weeks of routine and writing the officers and men of his ship had put In a lot of silent hard work and . exercised a tremendous amount of self-discipline. “The Press” this morning reports some remarks by H. G. Wells and it certainly looks as though he cannot exercise self-disci-pline but has let the enemy give him the “jitters.” The appearance of his remarks in any case counteracts the charge of suppression which he makes. The trouble about 95 per cent, of the criticism which is voiced is that it is futile, always harping- on something which might be done and not taking into account what has been accomplished and what difficulties have been’ swept away; The further away the critic, as in Mr Wells’s case from ' any possibility of having to exercise responsibility, the wilder and harsher becomes the criticism. Mr Attlee, who is a possible alternative to Mr Chamberlain, said that he did not see the , -if

British Government could have done much different in the Finnish affair. If Mr Wells had been the next in line for Mr Chamberlain’s job, he would have said the same. His pen may carry weight, but he bears no responsibility, when, if ever, actipn may be taken on his suggestions. . Mr Wells and the rest who have lost t their self-control howl for something j to be done; but if they had had their wish and a quarter of a million of Allied lives had been lost and nothing gained, the world would still be the same for them; they would still be standing on their -bind legs, braying. If the British Government were to act in the - way irresponsible critics suggest it would be just like a boxer, who loses his temper in the first round. —Yours, etc., EXERCISE SELF-DISCIPLINE. March 30. 1940. MR LEE’S EXPULSION TO THE EDITOR OF THE PRESS. Sir, —Surely Mr Hyland knows that the medical science he speaks of has ever stipulated that worry will aggravate; any illness. Therefore, it would appear that, at the annual Labour Party conference, the Hon. D. Wilson made ho inference but merely stated facts.—Yours, etc., STANLEY V. JENNINGSMarch 30, 1940. ART TO THE * EDITORS OF THE PKESS. Sir,—in your issue of. this date, takes exception to my views on the subject of art. May-I; endeavour

to make myself a little clearer. I submit that the material world around us is a wonderful and beautiful world, capable of calling forth the highest feelings of admiration and gratitude. Our delight and pleasure in this world can be adequately expressed in terms of form and colour, and therefore forms a legitimate basis for pictorial art. I do not say that this limits art or that it is its only basis. There is, as “M.V.L.” points out, another world of human thought and emotion. That world is not fully manifested by the material world, nor can it be adequately expressed in terms of form and colour. All great literature is a witness to this fact. There is also the world of common life and events, in which, we have to play our part. My contention is that we must see this world as it is, if we are to do anything of value in it. We must see its defects as well as its advantages; we must understand the ideals of other people and other nations. as well as those of our own. The easy. assumption, for example, which so many make to-day that the Allies in the present war are wholly righteous and that their opponents are wholly wicked is one of those little worlds of our own imagining and however useful it may seem at present, it will be a serious handicap in the future. ; The practice of art, even in its less ambitious forms, tends to develop , a habit of mind which can be applied with advantage in other directions. The habit of looking for essentials, of seeing things in relation to each other, of disregarding irrelevant details—all these -are qualities requisite in the

practice of art and of great utility in dealing with the more complex life of humanity. David Low, the eminent cartoonist, has brought these faculties to bear in both directions. “M.V.L.” may be interested in the following quotation from that artist. “We live, he says, “in a nominal democracy. My uwn opinion is coloured, I admit, by my desire to see it a real democracy, which is a possibility only if everybody knows at least the essentials of what is going on around him.”—The “Listener” (British), February 15. Yours, etc., J.F. March 30, 1940. PALESTINE, THE WORLD’S CORNER STONE TO THE EDITOR OR THE PRESS. ’ Sir, —Napoleon is reported to have said that the Power which can take and hold the highlands of Palestine will rule the world. Palestine is the corner-stone of three continents. The population is now about 1,300,000, of which, roughly, 800,000 are Moslems, 400,000 are Jews, and 100,000 are otherwise. . ■ . It seems to be the custom in presentday Palestine for workmen on a building to hold a little luncheon, with speeches when the roof is on, and the watchword used on the occasion is, “May the building last till Messiah comes.” It has been officially disclosed that 1400 refugees arrived in Palestine on September 3, 1939. The late Lord Kitchener spent some time in Palestine making surveys connected with the Palestine Exploration Society- It is on record :that as Lord Kitchener but-

veyed the Plains of Megiddo he said, “Here will be fought the world s last battle.” _ , . Well, the New Zealand Anzacs are there in good numbers, and woe betide Germany, Russia, and company should they strike a drive by armed force towards the Holy Land. It may be that the Power which can take and hold the highlands of Palestine will rule the world. —Yours, etc., PLAINS OF MEGIDDO. March 29, 1940. MENTAL DEFECTIVES TO THB EDITOR OF TELE PRESS. Sir, —Your correspondent ‘fE.M.** asks the meaning of the term “social defective.” He understands quite rightly that in the “feeble-minded” there is no mental disease at all. but only a lack of development,. resulting in childish wits in grown-up bodies. Well, in the “social defective,” too, there is no disease, but a similar congenital crippling, this time of the moral sense, so that its unhappy victims can as imperfectly distinguish “wrong” from “right” as a colourblind person can distinguish red from “green.” (I must not, of course, be supposed to say that all lawbreakers are of this class. Mercifully, they mostly are not.) Now, individuals of both these classes, particularly when friendless, can like the physically blind and the physically crippled, cause trouble, if not properly protected and helped. The difference is that we see and pity the physical defects, while these (far more pitiful) mental defects we don t, as a people, yet even recognise. I suppose it is a small- step forward to send SUCh . poor- souls -now to a-mental-

hospital instead of to a prison, when, through their defect, they break the law. But it is still a very cruel way of “providing” for them, and very wasteful, too: for they absorb, in a mental hospital, care needed for the mentally sick—which they are not. England has homes. America has colonies for them; and there they can become largely self-supporting—like our blind. A lot of this, our. unconscious cruelty, comes from mis-using the words “mental defective” to include both these real defectives, and also the mentally sick—a mistake made neither by England nor the United States. Why do our authorities make it and mislead our people?— Yours, etc., B E . BAUGHAN. Akaroa, March 29, 1940. FAREWELLS TO SOLDIERS TO THE BDITOB OF TTLB PRESS. Sir, —“Disgusted,” Darfield,” has missed one obvious reason for the absence of some from soldiers’ " farewells—the natural reluctance to suffer the embarrassment of answering the question a soldier might be indiscreet enough to ask: “When are you coming to join us?”—Yours, etc., PLAIN JANE. March 29. 1940. BOWLING GREENS TO THE EDITOR OS' THE PRESS. i Sir, —A recent letter' in your paper on the keeping of bowling greens and flower borders was of interest. It will create interest on most greens in and round duristcfaurcb. ■ The flower-bord-

ers brighten up the place, and are appreciate ! b ,r the club members and visitors alike. But the green is the most important of all, and needs the most care, that being the playing area. Most clubs see how close they can be cut, forgetting the indifferent weather we get in Canterbury. Drying nor’west winds and hot sun soon tell the tale. If all bowling greens were cut to a uniform height and not cut as low as possible (which most are) they would stand up to the wear' and tear much longer, and should be in better order at the close of the season. It is suggested that a prize be given to the best-kept green and best-kept outskirts at the end of the playing season. But surely one visit is not sufficient for a season covering six months. I would suggest one inspection after all greens are open for play, another half-way through the play season, and a final inspection just before the closing of greens.—Yours, etc., INTERESTED. March .29.. 1940.

FUEL COMPARISONS 'S'™' 2 . ' • S coco r* oti SE* ‘ c'gj' oCQ -g j•5 52 a) « — Oe, o.S oS 3,413 14.65 500 c.f. 4.8 19,0001b 1.83 150 c.f. 2.0 500 c.f. 1.80 11,0001b 1.46 13,5001b .79 rm-equals 10 fi o c S £3 a 3 0) s- • fcl Electric. Town gas Oil Prod, gas Coke ov. Coke Coal (The tjo a a U 6,826 j unit 20,833 2/- 1000 c.f 54.500 65/* ton . 50,000 3d 1000 c.f. 55.500 9d 1000 c.f. 68,400 30/- ton 126,000 20/- ton 0.000 B.T.U.’s.) —Yours, March etc., 30, 1940. J. J. HURLEY.