LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16824, 15 April 1918, Page 7

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

THE WAR LOAN. Sir,—ln every paper at present I find paragraphs advising people to subscribe to the war loan, and stating the Government had power to compel people to subscribe to it if they can and do rtot. Well this is as it should ho. but it does not go fur errough. 1 know of people who own thousands, hut have not taken up any of the war hum, and others only a lithe of what they should have taken up If the Government trusts to patriotism the >,tme thing will go on with this loan and any other which will have to be raised before the war is over. When the Government put this loan on the market they should J nave lfotilied these "financial shirkers"— as they know who they are—to take up at once their full quota of the two loans. If i this had been done, and the public ionvinced that everyone would contribute according t v » his or her means, 1 venture to i?ay that this and any other loan necessary would he cheerfully subscribed. Il it was right to conscript men for the front—and who can doubt it—then it is doubly light to conscript wealth In provide for them ' and cany on the country, and l>v the Government doing so at once inn h valuable time will bo saved. Waitoa. F. W. Wai tt.rs FOOD IN' IRELAND. Sir-Sir Thomas W. Russell, .M.P., vice-president of the Department of Agriculture, ill an interview with the press representatives in Dublin on February 4 last stated :—" Ireland is a great, food exporting iciiintiy—the greatest exporter of food to Great Britain, in fact, with the exception of the United States. If a shortage of any particular article of food which she produces takes place, Ireland ought, naturally, to have the first, claim on her own production. And the Department admitted this last year when potato export was prohibited. Ireland herself," Sir T. W. Russell continued, "imports in food and feeding stuffs for human and animal consumption practically as much in value as she exports value in normal times of about 33 millions annually in each case, but the value of the imported food is greater. It includes the lowerpriced foods, while the exports are of the higher-priced foods, and it includes the greatest staple food of all, wheat and flour, which, for the sake of the poorer classes of the population, has been artificially cheapened by the State." Here we have a responsible Minister of the Crown admitting that the Government has been obliged to "artificially cheapen" tho necessaries of life for the " poorer classes.'' If, as corres]Kmdents assert, there was abundance of food in Ireland, why tho necessity for "artificially" cheapening it? The necessity for cheapening it further is now greater, as Sir Thomas said, "the tonnage carrying these imports over the seas is this year in much greater peril than last, and it is being subjected to much heavier drafts upon it." This official statement should weigh heavier than that of the anonymous " Wife of an Irish Squire," or the '' responsible householder who has lived for many years in the South of Ireland." Jwtitia.