FREE SPEECH.

Evening Star, Issue 22893, 26 February 1938, Page 19

FREE SPEECH.

SO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Your editorial to-night complains of heckling Mr Holland. Just what does ho expect, when, like previous speakers from his party, he rambles all over and devotes the last quarter hour to his policy. Mr Hargest and Mr Holland have come and gone, and we know just about as much as if we had listened to Mrs Wiggs, of the Cabbage Patch. They can well alford to leave the Labour Cabinet alone; not one of them has made their Capitalist friends one penny wealthier by taxing message boys and girls, charladies, and that hard-working and selfsacrificing body of ladies, the nurses of New 7 Zealand, and then diverting, or rather I should say, subverting, the proceeds to wealthy, limited liability companies. If private enterprise is so successful, Mr Holland failed to explain why _ £7,000 had to be spent of the public’s money on a farm in the Kaikorai Valley, and goodness knows how many more thousands on a stock and station agent’s property under the name of a farm, which was just the manager’s. The first farm was bought for £1,200. Another case in point was building sections in Gardner street,. Mornington, belonging to a certain land agent, also under the name of a farm. Mr Holland was the most contradictory speaker I ever listened to. He believed in private enterprise, but had no objection to subsidies, socially contributed to by the public. Further, he thought there were too many State employees, hut is very determined to hang on to his job under the State. He is bitterly opposed to Socialism, but an ardent supporter of the socialisation of the youth of New Zealand in war time, to defend his and other people’s private enterprise. He believes also that a hoy should he ready to defend his country, but is very, very annoyed that the hoy' who is not yet old enough for cannon fodder cannot, with his father who fought in the last war, be evicted into the street to suit the convenience of land speculators and housing racketeers. Like his leader, Mr Hamilton, he is positively lachrymose about the woeful state of youths and girls. No sugar bags, no second-hand clothes drives in God’s Own Country 1 Their death bed repentance reminds me of the epitaph of a certain lady in ‘ Cornin’ Through the Rye.’ It ran thus : —■ Here lies the body of Betsy Binn, Who was so very purs within, She cast this outer shell of sin, And hatched herself a cherubin. If we were naughty in heckling we were angels in comparison to the Conservative cad immediately behind me, ■who specialised in punching married ladies in the ribs when their husbands were not looking.—l am, etc., C. S. MacArthdß. February 26. [Our correspondent enjoyed himself as a dissentient and critic when the National Government was on trial. He would fain prolong those criticisms for ever. But it is an outrage to him that the acts of a Labour Government should be questioned. He would not allow such a process. We refer him to a commentary in our ‘ By the Way ’ column.—Ed. E.S.]