The By-elections

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31344, 14 April 1967, Page 12

The By-elections

Sir, —What audacity to say that New Zealand workmen are the best in the world! Either Mr Bryson is being grossly sarcastic, or he is very uninformed. It would be more correct to say that they are trying to become the worst in the world. Basically, it is not the Prime Minister who says that prides will be put up, but the workmen who decide it by the amount of work they do. If Mr Bryson insists on his ideas, perhaps it would be a good idea if he visited Europe for a short time, just so that he could see for himself how low in the scale New Zealand workmen lie. Even a visit to Japan would show a high standard of work.—Yours, etc., SOPHOCLES. April 13, 1967.

Sir, —There should be enough historical knowledge of the results of the rule of minority governments in the Commonwealth to suggest the updating of political practice with professed scientific formulae to place beyond debate an electoral system to produce equality of votes in representation. When a degree of sovereignty is the price of security within our Commonwealth and United Nations, any political party, anklechained or otherwise, should not be shouldered with the decision of sequence of priority in overseas commitments, or in the tragic hazards in degree and direction that escalation in indo-China could produce. Wise understanding of co-existence and co-operation suggest measures to protect our people and produce from nuclear contamination—for instance, to sail and sell in the trade winds of the seven seas; also to recognise world opinion as a global asset which does not condone its own demise. After all, life is a process of moulting our illusions.—Yours, etc., WEST WIND. April 12, 1967.