SOCIALISM IN ALEXANDRA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23542, 4 July 1938, Page 7

SOCIALISM IN ALEXANDRA

TO THE EDITOR Sir,—lt would appear that Mrs. Bod-/ kin’s fear of Socialism is sufficiently • great to be a matter for news in your . local columns. King Edward VII is reported to have said long ago that , “we are all Socialists nowadays, but/ Mrs Bodkin evidently belongs to a dxf- / ferent age. It is strange to rne that * such an antagonism to Socialisfn should arise in the town of Alexandra. It . may be that a surfeit of Socialism produces an antipathy to it. ,■ Surrounded by Crown lands, reached • by an expensive State railway, rescued , from an almost barren area of sand , and scabweed by great national irngation schemes from every sui rounding valley, Alexandra has had probably ■ the largest transfusion of public money t into its commercial life of any district / of its size in New Zealand. Is there ■ any more Socialism which could come to Alexandra revolutionary enough to ■ alarm Mrs Bodkin even if it steals in < quietly? A co-operative store already . exists: there are a municipal water > supply, drainage, baths, etc., and ; lights are supplied by a commumal hydro-electric station.. The fruitgrowers have a State guaranteed minimum price for export, and a sympathetic Government stands by if they, strike a bad frost or are a little behind? with their rent or water rates. * Still, the march of Socialism may be ; held up yet. A brilliant victory for* rugged individualism may be the resultV of a party of armed amazons fighting on the bridge to the last against the installation of a State lawyer in the ~ town of Alexandra.—l am. etc., J. S.