PERSECUTION

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXIX, Issue LXIX, 28 May 1915, Page 4

PERSECUTION

(Otago Daily Times.) To the Editor,

Sir, —To anyone who has lived in Dunedin for the past 15 or 20 years the set wnich is being made against tb6 firm of Mallenstein Bros and. Co. (Limited), and >the businesses with which they are connected is almost inexplicable. As one who has been brought niore or less into contact with the members of tne firm from the time when the late Mr Bendix Hallenstein founded the New Zealand' Clothing Factory, and thereafter established throughout New Zealand the retail branches of that hive of industry which has for several decades given steady employment to many hundreds of our young people, I should be glad if you will afford me space for a lew words on the position wnich has arisen. The late Mr Hailenv stein and his brothers, whose combined capital was the means of starting the clothing factory business and its retail branches, originally came to Australia, and the foundation of their fortunes was there laid. Mr Bendix Helienstein came to Dunedin from Melbourne in the very earliest years of the gold discoveries in Otago, and, settling in Queenstown, by steady application to the general stbrekeeping business he started in that goldfields township, prospered. Thereafter he moved to Dunedin, and, as mentioned above, in conjunction with his brothers, the whole of them having been .for years naturalised British subjects, put a large amount o£ capital into the new clothing factory venture. .This capital cannot with a shadow of justification be called German capital. It was made in British colonies by- naturalised British subjects. In like manner the Hallenstein capital was instrumental in founding t&e Drapery Importing Company, familiarly, known as the D.1.C.,, and this business also.. has given~ employment to large numbers of men and: women in the various cities in New Zealand in' which its hranches are established. In the course of nature the original founders of these large industrial concerns .passed away, and their respective shares in the businesses came into the hands of sons and daughters, born in Australia or New Zealand. Mr Bendix Hallenstein's daughters married gentlemen; who are directors of Hallenstein Bros, and Co. (Limited) and of the D.1.C., one of them a German who for over 25 years has been a naturalised British subject. To anyone > who knows Mr Fels or the present-day members of the Hallenstein family it is utterly preposterous to say that any one of them is anything but absolutely loyal and true to British interests. If good citizenship and extreme liberality in giving to all worthy objects that come before the community for helo count for anything then the businesses of the New Zealand Clothing Factory and' D.I.C. should be as heartily and genuinely supported as those of any other traders in the community. As to the ■■ loyalty of the head of these firms to the British nation whose subjects they are, it is of tbe most complete type; They are in the first lank with the many patriotic men in this city whq have devoted time and money to the Empire's cause. Hallenstein Bros. (Limited) came forward at the beginning of the war with the handsome subscription of £500 to the patriotic funds, they from the outset encouraged their employees to volunteer for the Expeditionary Force, undertaking to pay all who enrolled halfpay for six months and to keeD their positions open until their return. The personal views of the various members °* the firm are, I know, so strongly abhorrent of the inhuman practices of the Lrermans in the conduct of the war and their desire for the triumph ot the Allies is so whole-hearted and earnest, as I also know from personal conversations with them—extending with Mr Fels to bis consent to the en- j listment of his only son with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force—that no ££r m/!i!" ma£. can", with a knowledge of these things, any longer har- ! bor suspicion or doubt as to their I genuineness.

It is, then, cruel and unworthy of members of this community to give their countenance to the efforts that rl!Ljl em£/?7 ade £ dama £c the businesses of fellow -citizens who are loyal subjects of the Empire; it is a departure from the traditionary British fair-play of which we are all" more or fe\ + mii lmt r- 0 >ast> and it is undoubtedly high time that the thoughtless and unthinking should fairly consider the position and act in a spirit more worthy of their nationality and of the dictates of fair-play ami jus-

™A Z T .he upwardly and vindictive S + *J° m last Saturday night disgraced themselves by destrov?HL pr°P? rty °f men whose shoes they are not worthy to black, they GEORGE FENWICK.