CORRESPONDENCE

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 44, 22 February 1915, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE

MB. MASSEY AND SHIPPING TO THS EDITOR. Sir, — I remember once reading in your valuable paper that what the Dominion wanted was statesmen, and not politicians. If Mr. Massey, speaking at Solway Show, was correctly reported, he said : "If the shipping companies do not come to light next year, the Government would have to provide ships itself. It was a big thing to say, but that was what the Government would .do." This, from Mr. Massey, is nothing move nor less than pure unadulterated bluff. It ie not even a "equare-deal" bluff. It so open and plain that even a schoolboy could Bee it, and savours rather of the politician than the statesman. If Mr. Massey, instead of continually harping on the shortage of tonnage, would tell the farmers to put their own house in order he would be doing better service to the Dominion. The farmers practically control the freezing worljs. If they don't, they should, and it is up to the freezing works to provide sufficient accommodation for holding frozen etock to tide over any difficulty that may arise through the temporary, or otherwise, Jack of shipping. If Mr. Massey's threat could be taken seriously, why didn't he arrange to do it this year, especially seeing that he has spent the Dominion's money ' in. bringing some chips back empty? If the shipping companies couldn't get the ships, neither could Mr. Ma«sey. He couldn't even get them built if he wanted to, and it would be far better, for him or anybody else making wild statements to get right back 10 mother earth instead of trying to hitch the producers of this Dominion on to 1 a State-owned or controlled line that exists only in Mr. Maesey's imagination and not in Lloyd's Register. — I am. etc., DR. SYNTAX. Wellington, 17th February.