LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 154, 27 March 1937, Page 11

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Don Bradman Si r> —j cannot let the statement of "Wyatt to the boys of Wellington College about Bradman being only a good bat on an easy wicket go unchallenged. May I ask 'Wyatt to cast his memory back to the season of 1930, when Australia won the Ashes in England? “When the Test was played at Manchester it rained and rained, but when it did cease and play was resumed in went this lad Bradman, who gained over 200 runs, not only once but every time his visit was made to the batting crease. Was that not the season when bodyline was concocted? Bradman is the best batsman the world has seen, at any time and on any wicket, and be is not one who makes a spasmodic century against weak bowling. —I am, etc., F. HARRIS. Wellington, March 25. Street Noises Sir, —After recent correspondence appearing in your columns upon the above subject, an improvement was noticed iu the street noises of 'Wellington, but unfortunately there has been a bad relapse recently, resulting this week in several sle.enless nights for the unfortunate dwellers of hotels at the corner of Willis and Manners Streets. Apart from the ordinary street noises after midnight, in which motor horns figure conspicuously, the chief offenders are dance halls or cabarets in the vicinity. and the milk trucks. The former appear to conduct their business well into the small hours of the morning, making the night hideous with howls and shrieks which last continued from 1 a.m. to 4 a.m. In the occasional lulls, a clanging and smashing of milk cans thrown apparently from carts to the footpath, continued for over two hours, leading one tp the conclusion that the milk department had adopted the vicinity of this corner as a changing station. I feel sure that neither the Police Department nor the mayor would permit the continuance of this pandemonium which kept me awake until close on 5 a.m. From midnight onward, there appears to be no evidence of police or city control, and certainly the noise continued unchecked. We are not all as fortunate as Lord Nuffield, and most of us require a. reasonable amount of sleep. I submit, sir, that the milk department should not allow the loud and continuous clanging of cans in the vicinity of two large hotels, and that the police should supervise cabarets and dance halls so that they are not allowed to become a public nuisance. I have been requested by several others to write you upon this subject, in the hope that something definite will be done to remove this nuisance, which is far worse than the wind and earthquakes of Wellington, and tends to destroy the peace and happiness of those visiting the Empire City.—l am, etc,, SUFFERER. Wellington, March 24.

Land Reform

Sir, —In your issue of March 20 there appears a cablegram in which his Holiness the Pope deals with the question of atheistic Communism, but with that subject lam not concerned. The encyclical urges, inter alia, that employers should recognise the workers’ right to adequate remuneration, but I am afraid this advice does not get us much further. What employer will admit that he is not already paying his employees adequate remuneration according to their industry and his ability to pay? And a very large proportion of workers (shall we say between 50 per cent, and 75 per cent.) would be willing to assert that they are not being paid adequate remuneration. With all possible respect to his Holiness, might I suggest that the worker, either hand worker or brain worker, is entitled to all that his labour produces—no more and no less. However, this desirable consummation can never be achieved while some in the community demand special privileges, such, for instance, as the right to private property in land. (In Abyssinia, which I understand was a Christian country, the ruling classes demanded the special privilege of regarding some human beings as suitable chattels for buying and selling and exploitation.) Until we are prepared to admit that all men are equally entitled to the use of land from which to supply their needs we cannot have a just and secure social system. Just how that principle shall be put into effect is too big a subject to discuss here : all I am asking- for just now is the recognition of the principle.—l am. etc., LAND REFORMER. Wellington, March 22.

Socialist Legislation

Sir. —This morning the Hon. Adaui Hamilton, Leader of the National Party, addressed a meeting of business men in the Dominion Farmers’ Conference Hall, Wellington. There is no doubt but that Mr. Hamilton convinced everybody present of his sincerity of . purpose, his evident honesty, his sound judgment, his knowledge of politics and political problems, his tolerance for all economic sections of the community, his breadth, of view, ajid his regard for the democratic state.

New Zealand politics of the future must be national. No one section of the community can thrive for long at the expense of other sections. The welfare of each is interwoven with the welfare of all. At the same time a Government must realise that the greatest degree of individual liberty—personal, political, and economic —must constitute an important part of the national welfare. Governmental interference with business, as Mr. Hamilton said, should be limited to concerns qualified as national, monopolistic, and licensed. Mr. Hamilton admits that there is no such thing as completely unregulated free competition, but at the same time he realises the danger of State-planning on the extensive scale advocated by the Labour Party. On the point of State control, Mr. Hamilton has taken a definite, statesmanlike stand. He says that State control should be considered only with concerns that are national, monopolistic and licensed: concerts of the nature of the post office, or for the generation—as distinct from distribution —of hydro-electric power. But the Labour Party goes beyond this. It proposes to nationalise completely the means of production, distribution, and exchange. By this, it intends to overthrow the capitalistic system, the system of private, ownership and enterprise, of private opinion and personal liberty, and in the long run, of the party system and the democratic State — as Russia has done. The New Zealand Labour Party is well on its way to make New Zealand what Russia is. Good luck to Adam Hamilton. May he stop this socialistic avalanche !-I am, etc., JUDGJIEXT