LAST SATURDAY’S DEMONSTRATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21542, 14 January 1932, Page 13

LAST SATURDAY’S DEMONSTRATION

TO THE EDITOR. Sin, —One reads with dismay the account of the food demonstration by a section of the unemployed on Saturday. Your leader on. the subject was decidedly unsympathetic to the demonstrators, as also were several remarks made by the Rev. Bryan Kins. The question arises, Did the unemployed require food? If so, why did not they receive it through the proper channels? Apparently _ the food supply was either not- forthcoming or it was inadequate. While deprecating the means they employed, it is nevertheless difficult to see what else the leaders of the demonstration could do to indicate immediately to the public that the people concerned were in dire want, and required help, not in a week or a month’s time, but at once. If the leaders had no cause for their behaviour they deserve the comments made by the Rev. Bryan King and yourself. But the fact that food was immediately proffered from everywhere shows only too clearly that their need was greater than their temerity in bringing the facts before the public in the way they did. The suffragists learned that the quickest way to rivet attention on their claims was deliberately to destroy property. That the present demonstrators were also aware of the psychological effect of such an action is apparent, and their efforts were duly rewarded by their receiving at once the food so badly needed, and previously withheld. If some of them will have to go to gaol in consequence, as is quite to be expected, no doubt they will go willingly in such a cause, —I am, etc., Live and Let Live. Glenavy, South Canterbury.