CONDENSED CORRESPONDENCE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXIV, Issue 16138, 15 January 1913, Page 12

CONDENSED CORRESPONDENCE.

J. Granz states that the daughters of well-to-do farmers who have been educated in town schools have introduced class distinction into the country districts. They speak rudely to the workers, and, when visiting a country store, expect all other customers to give w - ay to them. " Peccavi" fears that the parents of to-day are teaching their children to be hypocrites. The young people are instructed not to speak the truth, as it might give offence to their neighj bours or the "big wigs." "Peccavi concludes: "Reason points out that our best moral code is to truthfully promote human happiness, not to try and harmonise impossibilities as Adam's rib and the cast-iron firmament. Help the children; do not misguide them." J. Grey asks for more tolerance for the man whom fate has mado a human derelict, and suggests that employers should not accept uninvestigated hearsay as conclusive evidence against an applicant for employment and so hound an honest toiler from district to district. ~ „ . ~ "Eureka" writes:—" Parties would continue to exist under the elective Executive; the only difference would be that the Ministry would be chosen by vote of Parliament instead of by the Government. If Mr Nicholls votes at all he must vote for a party. Even the initiative referendum will ( not prevent anyone being a partisan." E. Townsend says that those who have all along insisted that national defence should bo undertaken .by themen of the dominion and not imposed upon voteless- irresponsible lads knov what valuo attaches to tho statements published bv tho Defence Department. " The figures representing the attendances at parades in tho various districts," he writes, "are the greatest reproach New Zealand has ever jxpenenced. Seventy thousand voteless boy.'-, have been forced by a choice between conscription and gaol into a so-calUid citizen army, whilst our 'patriotic citizens'—some 500,000 in numberare exempt." ~ .... ~. Alfred Lewis thinks that the militarists who would like to see Britain go to war with Germany have not seriously considered what war between the two nations would mean. The vast trade between tho two nations would end, throwing thousands out of •employment and paralysing the shipping industry, and tho inevitable rise in price and scarcity of food would bring the people face to faco with starvation. Added to these troubles would bo tho immense loss of lifefunong tho armies of the two nations. MiLewis concludes by advocating the application of arbitration and conciliation methods in international disputes. " Lono Hand " writes :—" A correspondent signing himself ' A Disciple of Lloyd Georgo ' wrote you recently criticising the Socialism that is preached in Cathedral Square, and asserting that England is tho freest country on' earth. It is free —to starve and go bare-foot in. Sir Henry Campbell Baimerman said _ that there were 13 000,000 loyal British subjects on tho verge of starvation. The Right Hon John Burns shows that £18,000,000 is spent annually on pauperism, and that in tho almshouses there aro over 1,030,000 paupers. Mr Frederick Townsend Martin, an American millionaire Socialist, after visiting England, said that not even in trust-ridden America is there such an impassable social gulf fixed between the rich and the poor as there is in England." ■\V. E. J. Maguiro writes:—"The Hon R.„H. Rhodes is no doubt aiming a t raising the physical standard of our children, but there is a grave danger of Eugenics defeating its real mission. Too much doctoring is liable to make o ur children become hypochondriacal and looking for medical advice instead 0 f "nderstonding something of tho,.

principles of mind over body. The world is awakening to the fact that many of tho disoases to-day can be traced to a lack of mental discipline in this competitive age. We should not only seek to free the child from disease and the seeds of future disease, but also inform, teach and inspire him in tho way of bringing to fruition all the possibilities of health latent in the body."