Readers Write

Northern Advocate, 23 July 1938, Page 4

Readers Write

Those of us who have recently re-1 newed radio licenses are reminded i that there has been no reduction of I foe during the reign 0 £ Labour. When| the fee was reduced | frtn 30/ to 25/ in 1935, 1 licenses totalled 152,000, | while latest infonna-! tion places the total at 285,000. ? The following figures should inter- i est radio listeners: NBS income for] nine months to March, 1937, £201,268; | expenditure Same period, £106,749; i showing excess of income over ex-] penditure of £94,519 for nine, months. | During this period, cost of pro- • grammes was only £56,000. Durihg the last 15 months there has | been a continued increase in licenses j so that at the present time, expendi-i ture must be roughly 50 per cent of! income. { May I ask the advocates of State i ownership if this is one of the ex-1 amples of “cheaper and better” serv-' ice one hears so much about from So- j cialistic propagandists, or is the NBS, being turned into just another source' of ever-incre'asing revenue, like its ’ little brother, the Commercial Serv ice?. One of two things is long over-i due—(a) either a considerable reduction in the license fee, or (b) an improved service. Regarding the latter alternative, a noticeable change has come over broadcasting policy during the last 21 years. The Parliamentary broadcasts are often illuminating, if not edifying, as witness the recent spate of electioneering propaganda at the country’s expense. The Prime Minister’s ten-minute trumpet blowing at 7 p.m. does not offend me because I don’t listen to it, but I do, as a taxpayer, protest against the increasing use of the main stations for party political propaganda—not only frequently spoiling what should be a plelasant evening’s entertainment, but also wrecking sporting broadcasts on Saturdays. There are occasions when broadcasts are desirable, but present control seizes upon every available pretext for the broadcasting of political propaganda. -The writer is prepared to pay for service, but claims that when a political party takes control of broadcasting the listeners not only pay, but pay dearly.—“FßEE AIR.”

RADIO AND POLITICS.

Every thoughtful person must deprecate the sneer directed by “A Farmer’s Wife” towards those who, to use her own ..words, have ..“half the alphabet attached to their names.” May I remind her that while academic honours do denote specialised knowledge, they also connote the possession of an open mind, which more readily grasps other knowledge ,and is more inclined to recognise other points of vx’ew. I worked on a farm for 15 years, up to 1911, and in that community of farmers, there were only two women who did not have to help in the milking-sheds and they did the only gardening that was done on their respective farms! The girls, even to a greater extent than the boys, were employed fn the sheds, and it was quite a common sight in those days to see babies “tucked into boxes” while mother milked. I am again living in a rural commuity, and only last month asked one woman if ft was necessary for her to work, as she is doing, in the shed. She said, “I like ft better than housework, and besides, it saves us the expense of hired labour.” This same woman told me that if the guaranteed price were only 9d, they would prefer it to the old conditions. Another woman I know, who has strugled along in dire poverty on one of the old farms I knew in my childhood, tells me now that they are almost out of debt, and she now has a “good stove, and a hotwater service for the first time,” and she shed tears of joy while she told me. For 23 years this woman milked night and morning, though she had to walk to the shed on crutches, and some of those years were in what we call normal times, when only about half of the people are living in poverty. It must be very hard for the Government, when they get so many conflicting opinions from the farmers themselves.

VRMERS’. WIVES TO. DAUGHTERS.

Certainly our prosperity as a country depends to a tremendous extent, on the continual increase in our exports, but there !s scarcely a limit to be set on our production, and the only limit to our exports is the inability of overseas people to purchase our products. Has “A Farmer’s Wife” ever asked herself why more of our butter is not sold in the United Kingdom? Is it because the workers don’t want ft, or because they never had the wages to buy what they want? Does she know that 600 miners in one colliery in England never tasted butter for two years? With their wives and families, call that 1200 people to whom, but for their economic conditions, New Zealand might have been supplying all their needs.. A little more academic learning would set “A Farmer’s Wife” on the road to understanding why such things should be, and, if she is not actuated purely by self-interest, I am sure she would be in the van of those of us who are determined that those thing should not bo . If “A Farmer’s Wife” would like to continue this correspondence personally, I shall be very happy. I think we might learn quite a lot from each other—“A Farmer's Daughter".