LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13396, 26 January 1907, Page 3

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

AN APPEAL. Sir.—May I,through your columns, appeal to the generosity oi tli• • public on behaJ of W. G. Legge, of Trafalgar-street, Onchunga? Tho facts briefly are as follows:—Legge has snftcreti irom consumption lor souio years, and was lor a time- a patient at the Cambridge. Sanatorium, whence he was discharged uncured. Since then ho has been living in a small four-roomed cottage at Onehuiiga with his wife and his six children, varying in age from one. to 13 years, lie is unable to work at his trade, and has no mean-, the family being supported almost entirely by the. exertions of his wife. Jtieuee he finds it impossible to raise the money necessary to build an open-air shelter in which he may live and sleep, and is compelled to share a room with his wife and youngest cnild. Now, most people, know that consumption is an infectious disease, and here is a man who. for want of a few pounds to build a shelter, is obliged to expose his wife and children to the risk of being infected with a disease from which only a .-mall percentage ever recover. That the risk is not an imaginary one is shown by the fact that one of his children, a boy, aged 10, has already contracted consumption, and is even now an inmate of the Cambridge Sanatorium. What will, in all probability, be the fate of the others unless the needful funds are forthcoming? The sum of £15 will suffice to erect an open-air shelter for (he father, and so minimise the risk ol conveying the disease to the re-t of his young children. A suitable place is available in the paddock attached to his cottage. I feel sure thai this ap- | peal will not be unheeded, if parents will j but. imagine their own children to be in like peril. I shall lie happy to receive and acknowledge subscription-, and to see that the ! money i- applied to the purpose for which it I is given. Subscriptions may be left at Sharland's pharmacy, or sent to mo bv post. Auckland. (l)ii')C. 11. 11. Pi.M'hE vi H. IRELAND AND NEW ZEALAND. [ Sir, —So much has been said about New Zealand having (lie management of its own ! affairs, ami Ireland only wanting the same j privilege, that I, who liithetio have not been I an ardent Home Miller, begin to see the jusj tier of the argument, and being a loyal co'o- [ nial am anxious to improve this country. I Therefore, 1 advocate a separate government I for the North Island. Why should we be the slaves of the South Island.' Why I shouldn't we be allowed to manage our own i affairs? It is true thai shortly we shall be | sending a majority of members to Welling- ! ton, but Ireland send- more members than I its population is entitled to to the Imperial j Parliament, yet so glaring is the injustice [ that; the colonies subscribe, thousands of | pounds to save the poor, down-trodden Irish | from their slavery. Convinced, i HOME RULE. [ Sir, —There are thousands of Irishmen in ! Hie colonies, 1 myself included, who will ! never see. Ireland again. What lias Home I Rule got. to do with u.-'.' Let us look to | the land we get our living in. J myself ' prefer this country. I left. Ireland 33 years i ago, wild and ignorant, but I have got the ' " ,awy"' not to go back again. However, i if they gel. Home Rule for Ireland there will not be a man, woman, or child live there after the tirst sifting of their parliaj ment. I think Scotland is only waiting ' to see if Ireland gets Home Rule, and then i they will want it, and then up goes the cjonge with the Royal Standard. Bui; Cod forbid that the British Empire, should i (all. A British Sailor. THE REV. R. .T. CAMPBELLS THEOLOGY. Sir,—Those who for years Lave been preaching an unpopular doctrine, and have ' been ostracised in consequence from the fellowship of the general Christian Chinch, may be permitted a jubilant "crow'' when joined by such a champion as the Rev. IX. J. Campbell. But. 1 tun heartily sorry if I have been made to seem to speatk with anything but respect and sympathy for all sincere lovers of truth, whatever bo their j convictions. Jvot me discriminate, between Mr. Camp- ! hell's utterance's and my own. I simply ! state the fact that Mr. Campbell's theologi- | cal position, as lately defined, is precisely . my own, and that of the Unitarian Church ! generally. There are many who are UniJ tarians without knowing it, inside and out- ! side the Churches. The different label does, I not destroy the identity of belief. As for Mr. Campbell's hard sayings con- , coming some of the opponents of the now i theology, which 1 quoted, I should hesitate ; some while before adopting- them as my ; own. There are two great forces in the ', world—heredity and variation, the conserI vative and the radical—always at work, both needed for the world's good; and it is not : merely ignorance and dishonesty that divide thorn. But surely Mr. Campbell would be justified by every right-minded lover of truth in denouncing as wicked the men who, ill his own words, "would rather please the unthinking mob or those who provide them with their daily bread than speak as the prophet of truth;" "those who are found willing to employ the weapons of slander, misrepresentation, and petty persecution, in order to destroy, if they can, an unpopular doctrine." .Surely ho is right in saying, "these men are liars, not so much by what, they say as by what they do not say. Liars by trying to ignore or misrepresent or distort, the truth, preaching as though thev do not, believe it when they do." Mr. Campbell doubtless knows of whom he is speaking. They are a mere section of the great, orthodox bodies, no doubt. But, ho believes them to be there. He holds up a very big!) standard of intellectual honour, of sincerity in religious thought. Will anyone deny that if is needed to-day'.' Cod keep me tolerant, towards every form of earnest and manly religious belief, even the most imperfect and ignorant, from my own point, of view. But. I see no harm in being intolerant towards insincerity, violation of ordination vows, the constant use of old phrases when their familiar meaning has been repudiated, teaching "new theoloc" 7 " under the flair of the old theology, continuance in a Church when essentia! elements of its creed have been rejected. One hears of these tilings from time to tvmc, ; and they ought not to be tolerated. Thev are the'thing.,, I take if, that Mr. Campbell had in mind. This insincerity is wickedness, for it is a poi-on that tie-troys all mora! and spiritual life. It is not, necessary that, we should have similar beliefs; but it is necessary that, we should hive honest beliefs honourably caroused and openlv expressed. All Cod's children will be rcJe-med if they are faithful to their own light. WILUAIt JELLIi;. January 24.

NATION AT, tk UU'F. OF NEW ZEALAND.

Sir, —Would vou kindly spare me space for one more letter upon tics subject, in replv to Mr. Taylor'; I see Mr. Tavjo- has evade l answering my plain question, and lias gone into a !ong-wird"d repetition of bis views and theories am' quibbles, etc. I wanted none of these, for I think I kno v the world and mankind as well if not a little bettor than Mr. Taylor, am' I smi'c you I have as many opinions and theories as he has upon this subject, but I leave tie's to men of greater experience than niy-clf. All I want is a plain, unpadded answer. Mr. Taylor owns that there might be one case out of ten where arbitration would fail and war follow, and lie owns that a, nation occasionally mii'ht go to war without seeking arbitration. Now, I want to know what we are to do if we are attacked in either of those two ea=os, and they m'ght be the first and second cases of the ten ju-t as wc'l as the last. New, if Mr. Taylor will be s 0 verv kind as to atiswe" 'his nues.tion plainly whether it is a. supposititious question or not, or whether or not, he can imagine or conceive the cases possible, and without any rigmarole, imaginative theories, ideas, or advice, etc., 1 will be very nun ii obliged to him. As for not being attacked without srivine off.-nee, this is a most impos ible theory. There are alw.avs two sides to a uuarrel, and roth sides permrallv *.'■ ink riione-.l . « riffht. and to the weafVer it is <?encra'!v the nneTpect-v! that ht'tinons. and then it is. "Who would have thought it?" I am afraid Mr. Tavlor is do of the '•Who would have thought it?" ort. C. W. Bates. Ccromandel, January 14, 1907.

THE STAND IN VICTORIA PARK. Sir, —I have waited patiently for .someone to protest against the waste of public money it) erecting the stand on the north side of the ground, but in vain; but as soon as it is erected we will have scores of complaints, of course too late. Now, anyone who has the slightest knowledge of the locality must know that from a spectator's point of viewit will ho useless, as the, cold, southerly wind will blow right into it four days out of five, making it impossible for anyone to sit thero and enjoy the games: and if it is useless to spectators it might well be asked what it is good for. Now, sir, I am strongly in favour of the stand being erected, and voted for it; but I certainly would not have done so if I had known where it was going to bo put. Still, there is sufficient time left, at the eleventh hour, to j prevent Mich a blunder being- perpetrated for all time at the public expense. U. G. JjDWAKCS. j

—. '". — - —-at THE WRECK OF THE ELVERLAND. : Sir, —In reading the report of th« New . "'5 Zealajt'j Heralu on tno wreck of the Elvcrland, 1 was greatly surprised to see in the steward's statement that ho said thai tho schooner Huia provided plenty of food, but had no clothes to give- them. I feel this as rather an insult to raysch and my crew, regarding clothe.-?, because when tho boat's crew camo alongside they one and all were provided \vi;> r complete change of clothing. In fact, more clothes were offered, but were refu'ed, as fhey wore all sot up with dry ..clothe*. In going ashore that evening with, a boat's crew wo found several articles of clothing lying about which were quite good enough for general use. I may state that a crew which left a ship in a dead calm, and in no desperate hurry to leave, could take their clothes with them. Dan. MacKkxkie, Master Aux. Sell. Iluia. Sir, —I have road with considorapljj surprise a paragraph in tho Nr.'.v Zh.ilanii Herald, 111 which the steward of the id-fated Elverland is reported to have made tho following statement : ■■" They gave us plenty of food on the Huia, bill they had no clothes to give us. ' In common justice to all hands on the Huia I wish most emphatically to contradict this statement, as the men were not 10 minutes on board before each of them had dry clothes given to them: in fact, I distinctly heard further supplies refused both from this crew, captain, and self. Tho only thing that was not supplied was hoot,--, but as most of lis found the weather sufficiently warm to knock about the deck with bare feet this could ■ not, have boon much of a hardship. Later ■ on, when some of our crew landed at Northwest Bay, a quantity of clothing was found, which hud evidently been left behind bv the Klverland < row. Any of this was quiuj good enough to have used when dried had tho men taken the trouble to bring it with them. My experience of sailors is long and varied, and believe me, Mr. Editor, sailors do not treat men in distress as indicated Inthe steward of the Elverland. .Stkwart Willis. Representing London Salvage Assn. with Huia expedition.