BANK OF NEW ZEALAND

Southland Times, Issue 25680, 24 May 1945, Page 2

BANK OF NEW ZEALAND

Sir,—ln reply to Mr H.i Jefferies let me say first that I, too, am the father of six, and, like him, have not a nodding acquaintance with any banker. But here our similarity ends abruptly. I am in 100 per cent agreement with the statement of Mr J. T. Martin that drew so much drivel from Mr Jefferies. I see workers’ unions as a normal necessity of the times, but I deplore the self-interest and un-social-istic outlook obtaining in many of them. They do not know when to call a halt, and they do not for a second consider what effect their often unreasonable demands and unilateral actions will have on others or the national economy. One gathers from Mr Jefferies’s letter that only wage-earners are workers. His assertion that the worker is the backbone of the country is more to my liking, but would he kindly be much more explicit with the term “worker”? Mr Jefferies takes violent exception to the word “mob” as used by Mr Martin. His faith in man is evidently very much greater than that which historical facts allow me to have. Why have we police? And does he forget what happened during the police strike in Melbourne? Just as imperfections occur in individuals, they can be possessed collectively. Undisciplined acts and mob irresponsibility are synonymous, and Mr Jefferies can hardly deny that the unrestrained demands of certain unions precipitated movements that have in a great measure wrecked the Government’s stabilization plan. In his utterly absurd comparison of the worker and the banker, he in effect condemns saving and capital, and would presumably have everyone dependent on a benevolent State for establishing anything, or in other words put our lives in the grip of the State. Does he forget that those in control of a State are only human and subject to all known human faults? And once the State is all-powerful, who is to say nay if corruption, tyranny and dictation emerge? This war should never have been fought if some of Mr Jefferies’s contentions are correct. J. GIBSON SMITH, Dacre, May 22, 1945.