Readers Write

Northern Advocate, 13 June 1938, Page 4

Readers Write

Kindly allow mo to mention a diffi-i culty with which hundreds of travel-1 lers on cur New Zealand railways | have to contend,] NON-SMOKING namely. the un-J CARRIAGES, pleasantness of being j fumigated with to-1 bacco fumes while travelling in non-] smoking carriages. ] Quite generally we find not gentle-1 men, but selfishmen—women alsopolluting with these sickening fumes the compartments of those who expect a pure atmosphere, and hove pmcl their fare for comfort and cleanliness in a non-smoking carriage. We justly inquire: Why do seme smokers persist in making themselves a nuisance in non-smoking carriages 'at the expense and inconvenience of those for whom these carriages are reserved? Smokers will smoke, and our Government has made ample provision for them in smoking compartments. There they, have a right to please themselves, and smoke to their heart’s content. They can rest assured that no ! non-smoker will interfere with them. Then let us be fair and respect the rights of every individual. It is high time the law was enforced, making examples of those who have no respect for the rights of others. —“A FAIR-MINDED CITIZEN.

Your correspondent, “Front Cog,” asserts that I said: “Socialism had never been tried.” Then he proceeds to stigmatise me as DEFENCE OF one who tells “fraudSOCIALISM. ulent untruths.” That, of course, is a lie of the most malignant kind, and proves what some men are capable of emitting when compelled, by a righteous law, to disgorge the profits made by unrighteous exploitation of the people. I distinctly said: “Socialism has never yet. been tried without treachery.” And that is true as truth itself. I have known many capitalists during my life of 75 years in New Zealand, some of them fine fellows demoralised by an entirely wrong economic system tl iat, VjJ misfortune, leads to bankruptcy and pawnbroking resorts, and, indubitably, is almost solely responsible for creating this dreadful state of world affairs, until modern war is now menacingly imminent. My farming confreres know their friends. I am only an infinitesimal object of Nature whirling through an illimitable abyss on my perilous way to the eternity that awaits all mortals, millions of whom are made unhappy by the brutality of some men who, like wild beasts, are mercilessly preying upon their fellow men, women and children. —WILLIAM R. KEAY.

In view of the evidently organised booing and hooting that took place tat Mr Adam Hamilton’s meeting in the Town Hall on SatBEHAVIOUR AT. urday night, one POLITICAL is constrained to MEETINGS. ask whether a political piarty that is dominated by such people is fit to govern a country. The Labour Party talks as though, it possesses a monopoly of democratic ideals; it talks as though it alone understands the secret meaning of the word freedom; its leader constantly talks about fair play; yet the only meetings in this town where speakers are heckled, booed and hooted by organised gangs in the audience to such an extent that the speaker cannot be heard by large sections of the audience is at meetings where the speakers are criticising the Labour Government. There has not been a single occasion when a Labour speaker has been confronted in Whangarei by a howling, booing mob of his opponents. There is not a single occasion in Whangarei when any Labour speaker has been even heckled so as to be made uncomfortable. There is not a single occasion when a Labour speaker has been prevented from speaking or prevented from being heard by a large portion of the audience. Yet that was what Labour in Whangarei tried to do on Saturday night. The opponents of Labour did not treat Mr J. A. Lee in that manner when he spoke here recently! Where, then, is the freedom of speech? Where is the right of public meeting? Are either of these British rights safe in the hands of such people? I have no objection to a running fire of interjection; every politician should expect that; and the wittier and more humorous the interjection the better. But when a political party has bands of howling, booing hooligans and youths steadfastly maintaining for two hours a roar of booing, hooting and cat-calling, so preventing hundreds of people who have come to listen from being able to hear, I say that fair play has disappeared from the ranks of that party. I am quite sure that, there are many electors who will not be attracted by such tactics, and' I am one of them.— “VOTER.”