LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16904, 17 July 1918, Page 9

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

RELIGION OF RESERVISTS. Sir,—An explanation by the Defence Department states that the Department requires knowledge of the religion of reservists for the purposes of identification and allotment of chaplains. This does not seem to me to be adequate, as it ' does not explain why it is necessary to inquire the reservist's religion prior to i medical examination; indeed, it does not appear necessary for the Department to know until the reservist enters camp. K.P. TAKAPUNA AFFAIRS. Sir—ln the report of the annual meeting of the Belmont. Ratepayers' Association, I am credited with certain remarks respecting increase in rates in the borough previous to the war. These remarks were made by Mr. Biss, the council member I representing No. 1 area of Bayswater and lielmont. The report is also inaccurate ! m attributing to me a statement regarding the decision of the council either to strike a larger rate or to call in the rates in advance instead of in arrears. Mr. Biss explained to the meeting that tho. council was largely pledged not to increase the rates, so that small savings had to be effected where possible ana the decision to request prompt payment of rates was one way in which a saving could be made. | What I did say was that tinder such a j pledge, and where revenue received was obviously insufficient to meet current and extraordinary "general expenditure," the result must inevitably be to load up such an overdraft that the successors in office would be practically unable to carry on for want of funds. Unless the expenditure this year is very much curtailed—and the present very wet season will not help in this directionthe outlook I for Mr. Blomfield'B successor is dark inI deed. The meeting was very well attended I considering that between 70 and 80 ratepayers were present on one of the roughest nights of this winter. This fact alone, wo hope, will serve to show the Mayor and the council that that portion of their domain views with anything but satisfaction the results of the past three years' administration and the general manner in which the council as a whole has allowed its money to be spent—or, rather, partly spent and partly wasted. Of the £50,000 loan, £40,000 are already expended, and in the Bayswater and Belmont areas there is j hardly a single footpath in general use along which one can now proceed clean-] footed. The remarks by " G.G." in the' Hekaid of Saturday are fully-borne out i by facts, and it is sincerely to be hope.d i that those responsible will now awake to | their self-imposed responsibility and take; the matter in hand and immediately see; that the root cause for all this mismanagement and consequent dissatisfaction is not just remedied, but, in tho interests, of succeeding years, absolutely removed. Ernest H. Wkigiht. THE LIQUOR TRADE. ', Sir,—For 32 years the New Zealand Alliance has professed to exist and to work ' for " The Abolition of the Liquor Traffic ! by the Direct Vote of the People," and j this has been inscribed in large letters on., the front cover of its annual reports ever I the front cover of its annual reports [ ever since then. But now it has abandoned its professed policy of voting out the trade, by substituting the policy of bringing it, to discontinue its traffic, to the tune t . of at least £4,500,000. The interest upon j this will considerably increase the', already too high cost of living. If the! alliance succeeds in its object it will be J the most ignominious ending to 32 years | of strenuous effort, and) the waste of , thousands of pounds of money at every I triennial poll; and in spite of a majority j of 54,282 votes cast for prohibition in.1911. ] The petition to the Government for a , referendum on the* question has nowhere i in it the word compensation, nor any . amount stated in it as being the maximum I sum. But the worst thing of all is revealed- j in correspondence that has passed recently between myself and the Rev. P. S. Smallfield, president of the New Zealand! Alliance. The Rev. John Dawson, 'secre- I tary, has publicly declared several times I &■■ reported in the press' that there would i be only two issues on the. ballot-paper that the voter could'vote for. These ' would be—(l) I vote for total prohibition in accordance with the terras of the Efficiency Board's report; (2) I vote for continuance. In order to make quite sure of this, I wrote to Mr. Smallfiekl, who stated in reply on June 27 that I had quite understood Mr. Dawson's statement. He also wrote:—"ln irty_opinion, if the alliance succeeds in getting the issues > placed on the ballot-paper in its own way the issues will read" as quoted above. In my reply to him I pointed out that there was no mention of compensation in i issue No. 1, which is the very essence of | the question; and also, what was far more serious, this form of ballot-paper only pro-1 vides for an affirmative vote, and gives no opportunity for any voter to vote against j either or both issues. So only those in favour of these proposals or either -of them, could vote; and those voters who , were opposed to either or both the above proposals could not vote at all. J. E- Taylor. A GERMAN PEACE. Sir,— meaning of a German peace is given in a. German pamphlet just to hand called " Deutschlrtnds Zukunft bei einem guten und eincm Schlecten Frieden," by District Magistrate R. M. Fischer, Doctor B. Gossner, Councillor M. von Gruber, and Doctor E. Keup. In view of the pacificist propaganda in our midst and the nonsense talked of the possibility of ending the war by negotiation with the Teuton barbarians, the terms which the latter hope to obtain, as now disclosed, will be of interest". The terms are as followsl. The German population to be increased from 80,000,000 to 1139,000,000 by annexations.. 2. The German territory to be increased from three and a-half millions of square kilometres to 14 millions of square kilometres. 3.* The Flanders coast to become German to establish sea-power bases against Eng- , land. 4. The basin of Briey and Longwy and all the French mining districts to be annexed to Germany. 5. All Belgium to be permanently occupied by Germany. 6. The English to be driven out of the Mediterranean and Egypt. 7. England's snares in the Suez Canal Company to be confiscated to Germany. 8. Malta. Cyprus, Aden, Perim, Socotra, and Koweit to become German. 9. Gibraltar to be internationalised. 10. Morocco, Tangier, and Tunis to be German. 11. Austria to get Wallachia, one-third of Servia, Montenegro, Albania, and the harbour of Valona. 12. Bulgaria to get the other two-thirds of Servia.. 13. Germany to annex in Africa the Belgian Congo, the Portuguese colonies, French Central and Equatorial Africa, the Sahara, Somali-' land, English East Africa, Uganda. Nvassaland, and Zanzibar, and all the old colonies of Germany to be returned. 14. Germany to annex the Azores, Madeira, the Cape de Verde Islr.nds, San Thome, and Principe. 15. Germany to annex Corn-land, Lithuania, Livonia, and Esthonia from Russia, with also all the Russian islands. 16. England and all Europe "in diplomacy to bow to the German will." 17. The allies to pay to Germany 10,000 million pounds sterling or a permanent annual cash payment of 650 million pounds sterling. 18. If the allies cannot pay in cash then Germany will take from the allies: (a) Their railways, canals, porta, and warehouses; (b) their coal, ore, salt mines, and petroleum; (c) land including cultivated farms, forests, and estates; (d) the oil wells of | Roumania; (el the allies' merchant ships of the value of 200 million pounds sterling; (f) the revenue of the Suez Canal; (g) the balance required to be made up of raw material, semi-manufactured goods, and foodstuffs; (h) Germany's allies to receive ' in addition to the above 7500 million of 'pounds sterling; (i) a compulsory economic • agreement with England and her allies whereby Germany will obtain an increase of £240,000,000 per annum in trade with Africa and a secure market in 132 million square kilometres of the world; I (j) one-half of England's mercantile marine j to be handed to Germany; (k) One-half of England's fleet to become German; (1) the German mercantile marine to be increased at the expense of the allies to

17.8 million tons 'from 4.7 million tons before the war; (m) fifty-six tons of coal per annum to be supplied to German; (n) Germany to get 509,000 million tons of coal in situ; (o) Germany to get 11 million tons of iron ore per annum 1 and 6984 million tons of iron ore in situ; ; (p) Germany to get 350,000 tons of '■ manganese ore per annum and the - manganese ore in situ in Russia amount- > ing to 117 million tons; (q) Germany to ' get of petroleum 1,800,000 tons per ' annum; (r) a consolidated German power 1 from Hamburg to Herat. The men who ■ wrote the above pamphlet are men of ' great intellectual power and acknowledged German leaders. Their pamphlet was published with the benediction of the German Government. In view of these facts can any sane man or woman in NewZealand who values our personal and national freedom, believe that it is possible to negotiate a peace with the Teuton beasts? No! Wo must fight on and with redoubled energy until Germany is finally smashed and her people recover from their drunken dream of world power, W. J. Napier. A.M.P. Buildings, July 13, 1918.