LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

New Zealand Herald, Volume 82, Issue 25396, 28 December 1945, Page 4

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

No Gratuity for Land Girls Sir, —I heartily agree with "Ex-land" in her letter concerning the treatment of land service women. If one section of the service women get rehabilitation and gratuity, why not the others? The girls on (lie land have worked hard and long hours, most of them for years, and whsit acknowledgment have they had? Why cannot they be allowed free travel, as the other setvice girls have, when their job is done? Anothkr Disgustkd Land Gnu,. "The Messiah" Sir, —'"The Messiah" is essentially a religious ollering, somewhat akin to the mass. It is a sermon in song. The audience is attracted by the beauty and majesty of the words, as well as by the grandeur of the music. Drama is not necessary. Choristers are not soloists. Tliov ;ire, for the most part, the "old guard," not very young, who have been singing in church choirs ever since they left Sunday school. At the end of even an abbreviated rendering, they do not wish to sing another note. Although there is a scarcity of male voices, the writer considers last month's rendition was superior to that of the preceding year—both chorus and orchestra.

Regarding the transposition of sections of the work, why be throttled by precedent? Does not the word "Alleluia" mean much more than "Amen"? Most certainly it does. This fact is no doubt responsible for the greater attraction of the former, and it; would ho quite legitimate to place the Amen chorus first on the programme it' it helped in the least degree to combat the deadly intrusion of so-called modern music. I<\ W. Mrikm:.

Tobacco Shortage Sir, —In recent weeks your paper has published statements made by the Minister of Supply regarding tobacco and cigarettes. Each of these statement* contradicts the other, as I shall point out. Being a discharged soldier, 1 am keenly interested in possible means of obtaining supplies of the fragrant weed. After being refused point-blank by all whom I endeavoured to patronise, I observed the Minister's first statement, ". . . as servicemen are discharged, tobacco and cigarettes are proportionately diverted from service canteens to civilian retailers." Armed with this statement, I attacked a leading Hamilton tobacconist. His reply was to hand nte his invoices for six months ending in November. These showed the Minister's statement to bo utterly contrary to fact. Shortly afterward the Herald contained a further statement by the Minister, . . civilian quotas are not being increased." Can the .Minister make a third statement, true if possible, and tell mo and my thousands of smokeless comrades what is happening to the tobacco and cigarettes no longer required by the service canteens a., men become demobilised?

In conclusion, during my four years' sojourn in a German prison camp nil Red Cross cigarettes were shared out equally. It is surely not too much to ask that the same be done in what was once "God's own country." Ex-29570. Small Shopkeeper Sir, —It is interesting to speculate on which class the most inconvenience would fall should the 40-hour week be enforced on every class of small business —particularly tho much-maligned dairy and mixed business. We (my husband anrl myself) open at G. 40 a.m. and close at B.DO p.m. every day. Ninety per cent of our customers are workers and all our early and late trade is with working people of both sexes, who live mostly in one room. 'I heir general shopping is rushed in a lunch hour or late at night, and they depend on places such as ours for milk, bread, daily papers, etc. Many strictly dairy lines are definitely unprofitable and wo could observe shorter hours with very little less net profit the main loser being the customer. To accuse these businesses of black marketing is not correct. The groceries they sell are at tribunal prices. The offence is "after hour trading." So many "legitimate" lines, such as confectionery, have been in such short supply that trailers, to survive, have been forced to fill up with whatever was available. Tho well-to-do have homes, refrigerators and space to store supplies. The less fortunate are forced into a from-shop-to-mouth system, and in a congested city area, where hundreds live in rooms with little or n'o space for food storage, great hardship could result in an enforcement or short hours, irrespective of the business or its locality. In spite of our long hours of work we, as a whole, are not in tho capitalist class. Believe it or not, a lot of our business is a labour of love, with benefit onlv to the producer and consumer. Too much interference could easily react only in one way—against the worker-customer. Do U.n ro Others.