CORRESPONDENCE

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXVII, Issue LXXVII, 21 May 1919, Page 4

CORRESPONDENCE

WHO ARE TBE BOLSHIVKjTS?—It.

(To the Editor.) Sir,—l will ask your readers* to take up the quotation from Mr George's speech in my letter of yesterday, it* words \vor e an argument ag«amst the miners' proposal of less work more pay and better conditions. I will ma ke his argument, more intelligible by dividing; it into four simple statements. (1) The" miners' proposal would mean /o W would &° up 8s or 10s a ton. (2) Ihis would ruin our export trade especially in coal, and would, in turn' make it impossible to imoort food since on each cargo of wheat w e should have to pay double freight, our ships goin°out with ballast. (3) If we do not import food we shall starve, because "in a country like this we cannot raise- our own food. (4) The Government still controls all the food at present in England, and the miners would have to depend, like every other branch, of the community, upon such food a 9 we should be able to distribute. Let u s examine thes e statements one by one. (1) This gratuitous assumption in statement 1 I simply deny, setting against it the expert workers' reasoned contention that it i s possible to meot their demands without raising the price of coal. Let Mr George find out the exact cost of raising a ton of coal .from ■the v average miu o and &« differeftt oharges Subsequently incurred in conveying it to the consumer, pnd he will see how foolish his economic assert on is, unless of course, upon th c supposition that he wishes to secure the;r 26J per cent, to the profiteering Dukes and noblemen" of England. (2) A simple denial is again a sufficient reply to thfegratiutflius assertion in statement 2. But the nistory and the rate of former great States teach the ablest economists to view with practical unconcern the almost entire la-s of import and export trade. This will be more apparent from our examination of number 3. (3) If we do not import food we shall starve, because "m a country like this" we cannot raise our own food. This one sentence contains a host of disputable! propositions, and at least one phrase that must damn any responsible statesman that makea it. England, he says, cannot produce sufficient food tor herself. She did it practically durino- the war, thanks to the fertility of her soil and the intelligence of her workers. .But look at the phrase: "In a country like this.'! England is by nature an agricultural -country,- and probably ; would yield the necessaries of life more abundantly than any other country .nl the world; but while it-remains "like this —more than half of it idle in the hands of less than two huriared profiteering and pleasure-seeking "noblemen, ' v must remain unproductive and be at the mercy of its imports. Take wu per cent of the miners out of tin© coal pits, and 90 per cent, of the factory hands out of the inhuman factories" put them oh the surface of the ground" under the rays of the benignant sun— 2. n jt , land ? f the country which in Gods law belongs to the'people: let them grow wheat there and there will b e no need to sond out empty sh!ips to import wheat. But while the country remains "like this," and k will so remain while the. Premier is the tool of the profiteers it will will be true with a fatal truth that the country,must depend largely for its food upon foreign lands. The Australian poet is a seer. "Sow-in 5 things an' growin' things, an' watchin' of 'em grow: That's the game," my father said, an,' father ought to. know. "Settin' things an' gettin' things to grow for folks to eat: That's the life," my father said, "that's very hard tQ beat." ( For my father was a farmer, as his j father was before, r Just sowin' things an' growin' things j in'far-off days of yore, :In the far-off land of England, till my • father found his feet in the new land, in the true land', where he took to growin' wheat. (4) We now come to the fourth statement, the most significant of all: The I Government still controls the food, and ; the miners would have to depend upon such food as we should be able to distriI bute. But why, I ask, does the GovernI aient still hold the food, now that the j war is over, and why this threat to the miners ? I s the food being held a s a | weapon against the strikers and to perI petuate the curse cf profiteering? When the country as empty and the towns crowded he who controls the food oonj trols the nation. This threat would be powerless against Ireland, a nation of farmers, but it rings like a death-knell against a nation of miners, factory i hands, and officials who burrow in inhuman warrens in London, Birmin°-- , ham, Glasgow and Cardiff. The food Hi , the hand& of the Government means I that the Duke of Hamilton lis secure, I and that the profiteer can still grin at : the toiler. .No further need to shoot clown the worker as a Peterloo. Starvation, the most efficient of al>l weapons, as current history tells us,' will beat them. It is the lesson over again ot Imperial Rome and her mastery over the nations that first lest control over their own. food and then over their own freedom. It was only the Roman Army that held the wheat, that could change | the Roman Government. Did Mr George recall this fact of ancient his- | tory when,. a a the cables inform us he consulted the 12,000 soldiers in camp as to what they would do in case of a strike? j I lay no claim to statesmanship, but with a moderate knowledge of tne law given my man's,; Creator, I suggest a better way to industrial peace. And when all is said, industrial; peace is more necessary to-day than peace international.. I am left entirely cold by present efforts after international peace The world's best men have been consulting for th c world's peace without invoking the aid of God upon their deliberations. But the world without God is woiidliness, and worldlinesg has never m any age been able to rise above itself and must ever express itself in the old pagan cry—"Vac victis," woes to the vanquished. Let each several nation nrsji & et its own house in interior peace and then peace, not woes, may be expected from their joint counsel Let statesmen and "63" follow the' lead of wisdom and intelligence- let them remember that special privilege not based upon useful service jo tn*e community is a violation of justice, that the making of profits where the, laborers do not receive a. living wag e %' an, laequity, that Capitalism mu^fc cease to .the driver of the industrial machine, and that the natural resources of the country must >je conserved and used tor the common g^otl of all who do honest worK m the country, Le t them put the plougnuian back in the furrow, and reinstate Wi the homestead the one-tini e sturdy S»iglish yeoman. But Mr George is rot. }'he man to do this. Ho is content. \o feed the cancer that i s gnawing n uto tlie national life, vainly hoping to. fcoe national greatness in desolate ftfjv rows, in .abandoned homesteads., in ! empty cradles, and in the rapid mult},

plication-X a proletariat that iviil. bo the Ijondsla,'T3 of proliteers u D home, and paymaste,vs, abroad. "An' they m/j^ht a' 'kept the honied stead if they'd singly stuck to wheat," •—I am, etc., , 3p.- j. power.