LITTERS TO THE EDITOR

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18021, 21 February 1922, Page 9

LITTERS TO THE EDITOR

PLAGUE PRECAUTIONS. Sir,—We aro continually regaled with the great precautions being taken by tho Hon. Mr. Parr in conjunction with the Harbour Board and City Council officials, yet to-day the Niagara from Sydney, an infected port and with fresh cuses being cabled, is berthed at the City end of Queen Street Wharf, and not far from th» famous sheds for the storage of stevedores' " junk " and a breeding place for rats. Will Mr. Parr or the officials of the Harbour Board and City Council kindly let us have tho definition of the word " precautions," as their interpretation is entirely opposed to Webster's and other loading authorities? P. Virtue. RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION'. Sir, —Somo years ago I was a member of a school committee in Mr. J. D. MeKenzic's district. The headmaster started Bible instruction, and then handed it ovor to a clergyman fresh from Home, who made the subject very attractive to the children until the master, who was High Church, found that the minister was a Low Churchman. Then trouble began; the high would not meet on the low road, so the minister resigned. < If lessons from the Bible could be given similarly as from, say, a work on botany, it would be all right, but it is customary for ministers of religion to read meanings uito, or out of, Scripture according to their theological training, resulting in harm instead of good. Suppose a minister appeared before a school with a monkey on a stick-, a fossilised bone or two. and some jelly in a jar, and gave.an address on evolution, stating " that it took thouands of scientists hundreds of years to put into millions of books," it would make their imaginations reel. I Vom another minister would have no difficulty in convincing a normal person that it would be easier to understand the story of creation written by a " primitive mind I aVeo with Mr. King's remarks on the likely difficulties with ministers. lam sure an educational old-timer like Mr. McKenzie has also strong reasons agatnst scheme of jtaft*Bombay.

gi,. _i read, with astonishment, the report of the refusal of the Education Board to meet the wishes of the Kotorua School Committee regarding religious instruction in the schools under its control. A more undemocratic blunder hat; seldom rome under my notice. The fact that, Mb parents against eight desired it for their children, and that 29 School Committees ugaJnst 2 endorsed the request, makes the talk about democratic government so much foolish verbiage. I had 20 years experience of the movement for religious instruction in Stale schools in Australia, particularly in Victoria and Queensland, and know smithing of the unsatisfactory working of religious instruction out of school "hours. The arguments about sectarian friction are utterly absurd and contrarv to experience. It is tragic that a matter of such vital importance in tho education of our children should b 6 sidetracked by tho personal predilections of th o few. No system of education can be complete without religious instruction upon which all morality is founded, and without which education only enables a man to toll a lie in teven ways instead of une. 111 spits of the loud-voiced negations, 1 miintain that, as a peoplo, wo are neither heathen nor pagan, as free secular and cnmpulsoiy education would infer, bin Christian; and the mass of the people desire that their children should bo taught " those higher duties which the law cannot command ov enforce, what no secular education can ever teach, in diffusing common honesty, the knowledge of right and wrong, and the old-fashioned fear of God as the pimisher of those who do ill and tho rewarder of those who do well." It is lamentable that the narrow Oigntry at'd sectarian bogies of platform and pulpit arators should bar the way to that winch the mass of parents know t<i be desirable in the education of their children. Hut tU decision of the Education Board, in faco of the facts, is one of the mist astounding things I have ever met with in my bnsr experience of educatinnal affairs, »nd I trwt tho Rotorua Committee will not allow the matter to rest at that if there are any possible means of redress. Waihi. Fred Greenwood. THE CITY MISSION. Sir, —I read in Saturday's Hebald a note by a professed mission attendant attributing insincerity to the Rev. Jasper Calder. I am a well-known supporter of the reverend gentleman, who has delivered over 60 sermons in my hearing during the past 15 months, and has been "up to tho neck" in his relief work in this city. May I then venture to express tho viow that Mr. Calder owes much of his attraction to his being first a brother to all in distress, secondly a scientific man who does not mouth Ptolemaic notions of the universe and Miltonic conceptions of creation; but, thirdly) combines an adequate knowledge of contemporary scienco with a passionate faith in Jesus Christ. Hence a large proportion of people who wander away from the insipid drivel of the common pulpit, come to hear him discuss in modern terms their life and faith and duty. He is a real man, the touchstone of whose sincerity lies in this, that he is not only eloquent but truthful and unevasive. Hence, men of the times finding him genuine metal in tho things they know, listen to him in things of faith. His winged eloquence, almost impossible to report, draws home the young folk from beach and picnic, and ho is for these reasons the one man who has a top-holo power to reach those who matter. God forbid I should cast any slur upon others, but the worW is weary of conventional worship, and craves reality, and something that will carry over into daily duty. It demands high ideals, and prefers a Byron or a Barns to a Southoy or a Heber, because behind those volcanic personalities, they discern genuine humanity bursting tho cerements of the grave to walk in the light of a risen Christ. J. H. Hudson.

FARMERS IN POLITICS. Sir,—ln your issue of February 16, you administered to tne members of the Farmers' Union in the Auckland province what in some quarters will be considered a well-merited castigation for their presumption in proposing to start a new political party, and as one of those who have to share the blame or perhaps later on claim some of the credit, I wish to make a few remarks on the other side. I fail to eee the application of your reference to proprietorship of constituencies. Surely any party may aspire to nominate a candidate for a constituency, but no party can have any proprietorship. As to selecting a leader, we have never claimed to be able to find a leader of the calibre or with the political experience of Mr. Massey, but if this is a sound objection, then the Reform Party is the only one with a right to exist in New Zealand at the present time. But the head and front of our offending seems to bo that we are going to antagonise all other sections of the people against the farmers, that we are going to split the votes apd caus6 increased minority representation, and also that we do not appreciate the fact that we have now a (Farmers' Government which gives the farmers all they can reasonably ask for. I suppose there are short-sighted, selfish individuals among farmers, as among other people, but that aa a body they will be so short-sighted as to antagonise all the other sections, and so render themselves politically powerless, is merely a gratuitous assumption, and I would advise those who wish to obtain a true idea on this point to study the platform of the proposed Country Party, and judge for themseives. As to splitting tho votes, if that happens the Reform Party are wholly to blame, for they have failed to redeem the' pledge that was made when thev came into power, to make some provision against such a contingency. The fact is that they soon found that any vote splitting was going to be in their favour by reason of the undefined boundary between Liberalism and Labour. They sacrificed principles to expediency, and if they should suffer for this now the blame will be theirs alone. The reference to the etete pf political parties in Queens-

land is rather unfortunate for the Herald's argument, the facts being that Labour held the reins of office by a large majority, until at the last election the advent of the Country Party so reduced it that they have been holding office ever since by a bare majority, and it is generally admitted that their days are numbered. Now, as to the farmers already getting all they can reasonably ask for, it can easily be shown that the real position is very different, but I will confine myself to one instance. What the farmers require most at the present time and what they have been insistently asking for, is such a drastio retrenchment in the public service as will bring the cost of government down to the prewar scale and permit some reduction in the huge burden of taxation, which is crushing the life out of industry and retarding development in town and country. The primary producers have had their incomes reduced to the pre-war rate and below it; they demand that 6ther things should be brought down in like proportion, and they hold that, in so demanding, they are acting in no narrow selfish way. As a matter of fact the Herald has been day in and day out preaching the same doctrine, and it has sorrowfully admitted that so far there has been very little result. The only difference between the Herald and the Farmers' Union is that the 'former is going to continue preaching and the latter has decided to act, by returning \o Parliament a body of men representing solid interests, who will be free to vote against the present or any other Government, whenever such actioiiiis required in the public interest. Te Kauwhata. A. A. Ross.

THE FINER FRUITS. Sir,—l notice in'the Herald of February 16 a letter under the heading of " Evolution or Creation," from which I gather that one reverend gentleman believes we originally came from a zoological garden, whereas another insists we spring from the Gardeu of Eden. Truly, when one studies human nature, it is not so difficult to believe we did have our origin in the zoological garden. Without going into details, it is a big proposition to ask the average person of to-day to believe the Genesis narrative. We have no absolute proof, and must believe blindly, a thing that we of today do not take to kindly; we need solid proofs. However, what matters where we sprang from ? We cannot alter that, but why not try to find out what we are, and arrange our lives accordingly. It has boen said that " most men, through mere ignorance and mistake, aro so occupied with factitious cares and superfluously coarse labours of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them." If, instead of wrangling over our ancestors, sume of our clergy attempted to show us how to pluck the finer fruits, it would serve a netter end. As Confucius puts it: "If you fail in your duty to men, how can you serve spirits ?" Some aro everlastingly trying to impress us that wo came from so and so; others take a delight in making us believe where wo are going in the future. But, alas! how many try to live in the present? When all is said and done, there is some truth in Tolstoy, when he says: "We are hero in this world as in a wayside inn, in which the Master has arranged everything really needful to us travellers, and hag gone away Himself, leaving instructions how we should behave in this temporary shelter." Whyshould we seek to probe into myths? We are the creatures of circumstances over which we have no control. So why not be grateful for what we are and for what we have, leaving the Groat Unknown alone, and instead of asking what Destiny is, go on in a blind understanding. The Spuikx.

THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH. Sir,—Was Moses the first journalist, the first imaginative descriptive writer? I put this question quite seriously in connection with the controversy that has arisen out of the utterances of the Rev. Jasper Calder. Many—but I think a diminishing number—atill hold fast to a ■belief in the theory of creation as outlined in Genesis. Others—a constantly growing body—maintain the view that in'the opening chapters of the Bible we have merely an Oriental allegory. They cannot all be right, and I think it would be well to consider a little deeper the origin of the first five books of the Scriptures, tho Pentateuch. Why did Moses write these? Surely that question cau easily be answered. When Moses came into close touch, as the God-appointed loader of his Hebrew brethren, then in bondage in Egypt, he quickly realised that he had a difficult task before him. Here was a people divided _ into twelve tribes, and crushed and disheartened by the cruel slavery of tho Egyptians, A crushed and down-trodden people is never easily enthused and led, and decidedly in the case of the children of Israel the difficulty would be augmented by the fact that they must bo considered as twelve tribes, doubtless not always working in harmony with each other. Moses was given the task of leading these wild nomadic tribesmen to freedom. Far-seeing and cultured man as he was, he realised that his first step must be to give them a strong race spirit, or rather pride of race. And how could that better t)e done than by writing up their history, as he imagined it to be, starting from the origin of the world, and step by step building up a theory of direct desoent from a mythical Adam and Eve, all tending to show that the ill-used Israelites .fere the .chosen people of God? Moses evidently realised that once you give a people a pride, of ancestry and of race you tend to elevate them and to bind them into a cohesive whole. By his writing and by his strong personality Moses succeeded in binding together into a race-proud nation what had hitherto been twelve tribes of desert men. United thus, they could stand up against oppression, and freed at last from Egyptian bondage, they were able to progress and finally Become a great and cultured nation. Once again one may ask: Was Moses the first journalist, or rather the first inspired journalist? , A. E. Moiser.

WEIGHT OF EGGS. Sir,—My attention has been drawn to a letter by Mr. S. H. Scott, in the Herald of February 14, regarding the weight of eggs, and as a member of the New Zealand Utility Poultry Club, I would like to explain the reasons which have caused the club to insist on a two-ounce standard weight egg at the Papanui competitions. During the last few years, over 100 returned soldiers in Canterbury have taken up .poultry-farming for a living, and these soldier farmers, in addition to others who have gone in for poultry-farming of late years, have increased the supply of eggs_ to such an extent that during the spring' months the supply of eggs on the Christchurch market was much greater than the demand, and it became necessary to look for other markets. The Cliristchurch Egg Circle decided to send several trial shipments of first-grade two-ounce eggs to London and when members of the circle packed the various shipments, they were greatly surprised to find that a very large percentage of the eggs had to be rejected on account of being under weight, and they drew the attention of the Utility Poultry Club to the matter If New Zealand is to build up an export trade in eggs, it must be prepared to supply the best quality, and apart from the export trade, Canterbury poultryfarmers recognise that the public has a right to be 'supplied with a full-weifrht egg, and not asked to pay, 3s or more per dozen for small, under-weight eggs, lhe rule at the Papanui tests is that pullets are required to lay eggs averaging two ounces from July 1 to December 31. and as the tests commence early in April, it will be seen that the Christchurch Club does not expect pullets' to lay two ounce eees right from the start. I understand that the Auckland Club has only a 23 ounce per dozen standard at Mount Albert for heavy breeds, but why the small light breed ben should be required to lay a heavier egg than the big heavy breed I cannot understand, and at the Papanui teste on December 31 last the percentage of rejects on account of under-weigbt egg 3 was much larger in the light breeds than in the heavy breeds. The weight of eggs is really more a matter of strain, and if poultry-farmers will only pay more attention to the mating of their breeding pens the complaints about small eggs will soon be a thing of the past. as. Saunmes.