CORRESPONDENCE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 9632, 5 October 1911, Page 6

CORRESPONDENCE.

(To the Editor.) Sir,— Through the kindness of one of your subscribers I received to-day a cutting ironi scribers I received to-day a cutting from your paper of the 26th, being a letter from R. Ross, of Rongotea, criticising my meeting there. Poor fellow he evidently is suffering from the camera brain, and everything appears upside down to him, 1 please convey my heartfelt svmpathy. Mr Ross seconded a vote of thanks to mo, and said that my address was the most able argument against Socialism ho had ever heard. Now ho says it was weak, easily destroyed, etc. Which of the two Mr Ross's are wo to believe? Ho accuses mo of stifling criticism, I invited questions and answered every question clearly and to the satisfaction of the audience. What. Mr'Ross evidently ! wanted was to get up■and make a stateI ment, which, if it had been as rambling 1 as his letter, would have been unintorest- • ing, without point, and debarred everyone else asking questions. No speaker could |permit such.a thing, neither did the ; audience express any such desire. . _ j To state that I mumbled something in ! reply to his question ro private enterprize is a deliberate misstatement. My answer was given in clear, unmistakable' language, but when a man's mind (like Mr Ross's) is so mixed and confused that he cannot eco the difference between allowing,' as he savs, milkman to water his i milk, the thief to adulterate food, and .legitimate private enterprise he ia beyond hope. The rest of my audience (theee old. fosI sils, as Mr' Ross calls them, but surely his _ eyesight is __ as I treacherous as his mental vision, or-lie would have seen the young men and women present) clearly understood when I was speaking of private enterprise that I stated the necessity of proper safeguards, and that, with this protection, private enadn that, with this protection, private enterprise, was not-to be so much dreaded as State monopoly. But I can easily put my finger on Mr Ross's sore spot. He is the local storekeeper, and he tells ua in his letter that these old reactionaries are so up-to-date that they havo decided to start a co-opera-tive store.oven before Mr.Jones spoko of private enterprise: they aro not so ancient or rusty as you thought, Mr Ross, but aro proceeding on up-to ! datc lines that are succeeding all over the colony, and this spirit of co-operation is what I want, to encourage amongst, not only farmers, but workers; this is something quite apart ] from the State monopoly, which is the Socialists' dream. Mr- Ross is a monopolist at heart, consequently ho docs not liko this co-operative 1 idea, but being still a comparatively young 1 man there is a prospect that the mellow--1 ing influence of time may show him his ■ errors, and lead him into the right way , I am, etc., DAVID JONES. , Hastings, October 4.