NOTES AND COMMENTS

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 120, 16 February 1944, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS

Residents of Kliandallali have been sufficiently alive to their rights and interests to hold a public protest meeting about the hold-up of the Railways Department’s local Sunday road service. They have, moreover, seized on the real point at issue-the injury to the public resulting from a dispute between the department and the bus-drivers. The merits of the dispute thev regarded as quite beside the point. At long last a meeting of New Zealand people has set an example by asserting the principle of action that the general public interest should be regarded as of more vital importance than the interests of a section which seeks to attain its ends by defying authority. A parallel case, but on a national scale, is the present coal shortage. Here the general public interest is being seriously injured by the action of a section, and the latest report on the position suggests that t may become worse instead of better, with every promise of acute scarcity . and hardship in the coming winter months. Are the people prepared to sit down calmlv and endure without emphatic protest a situation like this, in “h an apparently impotent Government can do nothing more than plead with the trouble-makers to be reasonable? if *

Mr J P Abbott, chairman of the Australian Woolgrowers Council, has stated that sheepfarmers in Australia. South Africa, New have developed a policy to deal with the menace of wool substitnites He said, in the course of a letter, that conversations had been Held with s. Federal Ministers, but wore at present confidential. But referring synthetic textiles he added: “To divulge to our competitors the plans; which in conjunction with the Dominions of South Africa and New Zealand.we have developed for dealing with the menace would be madness. The m. facturers of synthetic fibres represent some of the wealthiest and most powerful corporations in the world. The menace is real and dangerous. Mr. Abbott then stated three fundamentals for the prosperity of wool: (a o preserve the health and increase the capacity of the flocks to produce wool, (b) Undertake research into the now uses for wool and improve the manufacture of woollen goods, (c) Publicize the virtues of wool to the peoples of tile world. ‘Those fundamentals, he said, had been actively pursued and progress was being made with the first two, but the third had been curtailed by the war.