Readers Write

Northern Advocate, 26 April 1940, Page 4

Readers Write

It has recently come to my notice that a Lodge of the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes, has been formed in Whangarei. As

R.A.O. B.

a member of the Or-,

der for upwards of 56 years, one time editor of the “Buffalo World,” and, one of the founders of the R.A.0.8. League of Light, I am writing to say that if any brother wishing to learn something of the origin and objects of the Order and finding himself in Gakleigh, would care to call upon me, I would be pleased to give him the benefit of my knowledge. My only regret is that, at 83, I cannot attend the Lodge;—C. S. TOMLIN. K.0.M.L.0.L. (Oakleigh).

At the conclusion of one of the most extraordinary letters I have seen in the “Advocate,” Mr Cameron at-

tempts to place the rights of the people

SOCIALISM.

of this country, as re-! gards the. wealth they, by their labour, have produced,' upon the same basis as the Japanese. What an extraordinary argument to put to any honest New Zealand workman or working farmer in times when wages are forced down designedly, which .in turn reduces the consumption of foodstuffs, bringing about a position where cabbages are sold at 1/ per sack, or dumped, along with other food, into the sea. What a heartless argument to bring forward as the excuse for semistarving the people of this country during so-called depressions, even when food is being deliberately destroyed because, although it is cheap, the people cannot buy and consume it. The wealthy eat their fill and the Surplus, above veini-starvation level (for the common people), is destroyed. Is it any wonder the people for generations have tried to exchange some sort of “ism” for Capitalism? Capitalism and orthodox finance have destroyed food while people were starving.

Mr Cameron evidently thinks that if in a young country such as ours the first arrivals to our shores took up all the land for a blanket or two from the natives, all subsequent settlers must be slaves for generations. Let me inform Mr Cameron that in this, the year 1940—our Centennial year—our national indebtedness has been estimated at sontfewhere about £100,000,000. That is one of the heights to which the class Mr Cameron defends, have led the country in just 100 years. If Mr Cameron will just look at the map of Europe he will also see what this Conservatism he attempts to champion, has dons. Capitalism has driven the people to all sorts of terrible “isms.” All these countries were capitalistic countries only a few years ago. Look at them today. The unequal distribution. of the wealth of the various countries, even in good seasons, the deliberate manufacture of class distinction, which is opposed by even Christianity, and the deliberate destruction of the harvests in depressions, have done more than anything else to make me and thousands like me, what I sign myself—“A SOCIALIST.”