LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVII, Issue 17596, 8 October 1920, Page 7

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

TAX ON LOCAL DEBENTURES. * Sir,—" A .Widow" writes complaining of the debenture tax of 2s 6d in the £ on her income of £150 per annum derived from money invested in local bodies loans; but provision has been made for a refund of the tax referred to in such cases as her a. The alteration in the mode of collecting the tax is to check evasion of pay-* ment by those well able to pay. " » . * Fair Deal. i ■ GAS CUT. Sir.—When the gas company endeavoured to serve the community some weeks ago with a reduced pressure there was a great outcry from ■ the public on account at the meter registrations. The company, on account of inferior ooal, not getting good -results, naturally were running- this reduced pressure at a loss, just as the keepers of the tearooms and restaurants find it is costing more to serve the public by supplementary methods now that the gas is completely shut off. Had the consumers bee® more patient at the time of the reduced pressure it is just possible that the present complete shut-down might not have taken place. Whilst there are always plenty of'adverse critics there are few who point out any remedy. _. . _ Toleration. October 7, 1920. THE MARRIAGE LAW., \ Sir.— is it that the Roman Catholic Church attempts, in every country where it gets a footing, to be above the law? We tareJt here in New Zealand. Because the bishops and clergy are not going to be allowed! to say that I, and thousands more, lawfully married by a New Zealand registrar, are not married and that our families are illegitimate, they at once shriek out their wild defiance of the law talk of gaol. Compare Archbishop O SHea's bluster with the law-abiding remarks of the Jewish Rabbi, " the law is paramount." I trust that Mr. Massey will take up the Hon. Mr. MacGregor's Bill. I am afraid he won't, but wo are reaching the stage when it is past pretending, when sides must be taken and a* law passed to protect the children of those who, like myself, unfortunately fire Married to a Catholic. neglected streets.

Where is the West End Seaside Estate? It is just within a mile of the Heine Bay trains, in the city of Auckland, where it is- too far to ask the overseer to wait to inspect the state of Rawsne Avenue and our roacfe. Some time ago our city engineer ventured this way, but as his motor stuck in the mud and he ha<d trouble to get free it may be a while before we Bee or hear of him again. Nowhere in the world would you find any part of a city allowed! to get into the disgraceful state these roads are in at present. I have written to our City Council and visited the office -to try and get something done in this part of the city where not at penny of our rates has been spent during the past five years. My bill for rates this year is £17 14s 10d, and as there are 79 other holdings in this estate alone, surely the council, if it cSoes not want our rates to spend elsewhere, should at least let us have one per cent, of our money to spend on our roads, and thus make some improvement. S. Turkixgton. LABOUR FOR THE MINES. , Sir,We must have coal, and I would suggest that black British subjects be introduced to mine it. I am a. returned soldier, and have seen the Indians in action, and I know that . they can be trusted under capable supervision. The war was fought for liberty and for the welfare of our womenfolk, but we return to New Zealand to find the horrors of peace worse than the horrors of war, and our women driven to distraction to provide meals for their households. We do not want the health of the good people of New Zealand impaired by selfish miners. Ex-Soldier.

Sir, Being a staunch democrat, I cannot understand why the population of this Dominion should knuckle down to the dictation of the labour autocrats who have taken control of the vital industries of this country. Just at present the whole population is suffering owing to the lack of coal, just because those autocrats have proclaimed that coal shall not be produced. I consider that the Government should plainly inform the miners that unless the present intolerable position is brought to an end the public shall have the opportunity of expressing their opinion, by means of a referendum, on the question of producing the necessary coal required from our mines by means of coolie labour. The ballot paper could read as follows:— (1) I vote that coolie labour be employed to produce from the mines of this Dominion the whole of the coal required for all purposes. (2) I vote that the present method of obtaining coal shall remain, and that no coolie labour should be brought in to work the mines. Personally lam opposed to coolie labour if it can be avoided, and I never thought I would ever be an advocate for introducing it in this country; but during the last few years the miners have made it so hot for the other workers of the Dominion that the time has come when something will have to be done to provide more coal to keep our factories and public services going, and so far as I can see we will have to fall back on our black comrades, which would be all right providing they are kept in compounds at the mines, and returned to their homes after their time has expired. Every worker in this country is or should be a democrat, and he should be quite prepared to submit a serious position, such as we have to-day, to the verdict of the people, and if the present miners' organisations find that the expressed will of the people is against them they would only have themselves to blame for the position in which they would find themselves. It is an impossible position when about two or three thousand men set themselves out to hold up a population of over 1,000,000 and compel us to pay thousands of pounds per annum for foreign coal when we have all the coal we require in the country, and it is only a question of getting it out of the ground. A Walking Worker.

BUTTER PRODUCERS' WAGES. Sir, — a business man and also one ■who in younger days hajd experience of work on dairy farms, I am in favour of the farmer getting the highest price ha can for his products. Undoubtedly he has to work hard and gets little for his labour, unless he sells his farm on a rising market. On the other hand I advocate placing the farmer on the same basis as other businesses. It is -welt known that the farmer is and always has been the pet of each Government and is hand fed. The Agricultural Department is run at a loss to provide him with all sorts of information necessary to the scientific working of his farm. The Agricultural Journal, one of the finest of its class, is sold to the farmer at less than the paper is worth on which it is printed. He pays less per ton for freight for lime, manures, etc., for use in production, and less per ton for all produce he sends away than other business concerns. Let him gel. what he can for his products but make him pay for all he gets and then no one would have reason to complain. Equality. Sir, —As evidence in support of his contention that "the dairy farmer is the lowest-paid worker in the Dominion," Mr. Col beck's latest letter has even less value than the first. What the Court he appeals to requires is a complete conspectus of the work on a one-man dairy farm carrying 15 cows, "with a balance-sheet showing every item of income and expenditure, not, forgetting the "unearned increment" of the value of the land. I take no exception to his statement of the time taken up in performing the necessary duties pertaining to the efficient working of a dairy farm, but would point out that the drive to. the factory with the milk in the morning— not to mention the "corrobboree" with the other suppliers when he ■ gets there—is more of the nature of an agreeable spelL xaihfiE thaw hard work, Sis nahrq.

inclusion, of . "attending markets" as part of the - day's 'work i made me smile. Most farmers make market day -"a s day. out." I have 110 wish to belittle the economic value of the. farmer to the community. Let him reap every' advantage the market price of the products, of his labour gives him. The deadly dullness of > a back-blocks farm deserves: recompense. But don't let the farmer imagine that the secondary producers are not as necessary in the chain of interdependent production as he is. Without the transporter, the commercial agent, and the banker, all his i toil would go for naught. And don't let, Mr. _ Colbeckftry to make thfe public think | he is producing at a loss. I don't be- ! lieve- it, and until given better proof than j any-yet' advanced _ will continue to think t the dairy farmer is just at present on a good commercial wicket. A.F ' HARNESSING THE TIDES. Sir, —-The problem of generating motive power in the best and most economical way is one that is pressing for solution with great urgency ! as the chief source of motive power, coal, is evidently becoming a very uncertain and diminishing quantity the whole world over. • Auckland and other populous districts are so far away from vast bodies of water at a great elevation above sea level that it is well worth inquiring into whether the immense weight of tidal water that flows into our numerous estuaries in the Auckland - Province cannot be made to do efficient and useful work by impounding it at each full tide, and thus obtaining the control of an unlimited quantity of sea water with an immediate direct fall varying from 3ft to 13ft._, which could be passed through specially-made low-pressure turbines, and which would operate at least sixteen hours out of the twenty-four, by using only the uppermost foot of impounded water during the ebb and flow of each tide. I have earnestly advocated this for more- than twenty-five years. Now I learn that it is about to be adopted in Great Britain on a very large scale. The London Daily Mail reports: ''Work is about to begin both on the Dee and the Severn, where power -can be produced, according to a group of engineers, at twothirds the cost of electric power generated by coal. More than this, a number of estuaries on the west coast have been surveyed, where the cost of installation would - be considerably lower. Great Britain may remain among the greatest manufacturing centres of the world, even if every ounce of coal disappears. Such is the belief of one eminent foreign engineer who has studied the possibilities. Models have been set to work within the last months, and they confirm the estimate that power which now costs- id a unit can be produced for £d. The essence of the invention is this: The tide works a turbine and makes power both at its in- J flow and its outflow, only ceasing for a comparatively small while during the period of half tide. In one Cheshire and Lancashire district, the great .variation in the hour of the tide at neighbouring estuaries makes possible, thanks to an ingenious discovery, the * production of masurium energy during an almost continuous period. A Bill is about to come before Parliament for the harnessing ' of a number of Scottish streams, and the sum of available power in Scotland proves on further investigation to be bigger than was expected." As far back as December, 1893, I wrote on this subject, and ! showed that the uppermost foot of sea i water spread over the 2035 acres- above 1 Mangere Bridge at full tide, if impounded, would give on the average 1300 horsepower for nine hours out of every twelve hours, and we have much larger tidal estuaries than this at our disposal. • » J. E. Taylor.

THE FARMER AND THE WORKER, j Sir,To a disinterested spectator it is I somewhat amusing to notice how plausible' a case each section of the community can ; put forth to justify its claim to a fair I share of the .bounties of Mother Nature, i In almost every case each adherent is simply stating what, to him, are true ■ facts and reasonable estimates, but un- J fortunately very few of us can see the ! other man's argument. The case in point j is the miner and the farmer. Each j accuses the other of " having a good thing ! on." Mr. Frank Colbeck, in the Heeulld j of September 27, endeavours to show that i the farmer is paid at a lower rate of j wages than the general labourer. This j to my mind is, oft the face of it, absurd ; , otherwise we should have more general labourers and fewer farmers. Further, believing that Mr. Colbeck gave his figures in good faith, to me as a neutral they are misleading. (1) I doubt if a dairy farmer (with a fully improved farm), works anything like 12 hours a day. (2) That the average milker cannot milk more than 15 cows, night and morning. With regard to the second, I have it from a farmer that he can milk, and has regu- j larly milked, 40 cows night and morning j in three hours at each milking. This is! by no means exceptional, and I conclude that the hours between milkings are spent in (ap improving the farm—that is, increasing the capital, the equivalent of putting something in the bank; (b) Getting and. chopping firewood. This costs the labourer quite 8s a week if he can either afford it or get it; another 8s in the bank for the farmer. Then he has his hens, pigs, no rent to pay— of which are valuable assets, and would cost the labourer probably half his wages. Kent, 20s; firing, 8s; eggs, 2s 6d; bacon, 4e 6d ; milk, 4s 6d; total, £1 19s 6d. All these are little extras for the j farmer which Mr. Colbeck does not take into consideration. Personally, I think it's quite patent and a simple calculation to prove that the high cost of land is the cause of .the high cost of producing butter, to wit : In 1914 a farmer "bought in'' 150 acres at £30 an acre, and sells in 1919 at £65 an acre, i.e., £5250 above wages in five yeaTs, or £20 a week above the labourer's wage. The man who " comes in " has to pay this £5250 or interest on same. If he pays interest he has £6 a week to find. This, I take it, is obtained from butter-fat, and it naturally follows that butter must rise in. price. I am of opinion that both the farmer and the miner are having a good innings, and acknowledging that farmers generally do work long hours, they are well paid. I know of manv farmers who can make the trip " Home,'" but I don't know of any miner, positively no labourer. Again, I learn of many miners who go on the land. If they could do better in the mine, I am of opinion they would soon return to the mine. Besides, if mining is such a sinecure, how is it that the country is short of coal and coalminers? If Mr. Colbeck really believes that the miners have a " good thing on" I think he is missing a golden opportunity in not becoming a miner himself. Personally, if I could do better in the mine I would SQon ioin thp, ranks. Integer.