LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume VI, Issue 1808, 29 November 1919, Page 8

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS. "Thought."—Put on your thinking cap again, and give us the details of the "extra £IOOO per annum" you say it will I cost to substitute a motor mail van for j the horse wagon. "Hard Up."—lf you promise to write clearly we will waive,the proviso requiring competitors to typewrite their stories for The Sun Christmas Number Competition. "Visitor."—The drainage question has been very fully discussed in the columns of The Sun and your letter throws no light upon it. H. Bliss, Jun.—lf you want us to take any notice of your communications you must write plainly m Ink. Life fs too short to spend any of It trying to decipher carbon copies of illegibly written letters on the milk supply question. "Inquirer."—The Hon. G. W. Russell made his flrst attempt to enter politics in 1881, when he contested the Foxton scat. At that time the Hall Government (Conservative) was in power. Mr Russell came third on the list out of six candidates, defeating Sir Walter Buller and Dr Newman. At the General Election or 1887, Mr Russell carried the Government (Liberal) colours in Waikato, but he was defeated by the Hon. J. B. Whytc, the voting being 678 to 524. "F.S."—lf National Prohibition is carried on December 17, it will come into effect on June 30, 1920.

WIDOWS' PENSIONS. To the Editor of THE SUN. Sir, —I have read two letters in The Sun recently, headed "Widows' Pensions, '' and this evening, in an article headed "Liberalism," there is reference to a humane measure passed by Sir Joseph Ward's Government for the relief of widows. Can you tell me, sir, if widows do get a pension? or is it only an allowance for young children? I know a widow's lot is extremely hard in this unpitying world, and, in training her children to be good citizens, sho does yeoman service to the State, much more than any soldier, and I hope, sir, when Parliament meets again you will take up your pen on the widow's' behalf, so that these women who have to do a father's and a mother's work may have a measure of relief. —I am, etc.,

JUSTICE. [The Widows Pensions Act, passed in 1911, when Sir Joseph Ward was Prime Minister, provided for the payment of pensions to widows resident in New Zealand who have legitimate children, born in New Zealand, under 14 years of ngc, provided the mother resided in the Dominion for at least six months before the birth of each child to whom the Act is applicable. The rates of pension fixed by that Act were: Widow with one child, £l2 n year; with two children, £18; with three children, £24; with more than three children, £3O. Each of those rates was subject to a deduction of £1 for every pound by which the annual income of the widow and her children exceeded £3O. In 1913. when the Rt. Hon. W. F. Massey was Prime Minister, the Act was amended by, inter alia, the deletion of the provisions that pensions Were not to be payable in respect to adopted children or to any child born in New Zealand unless its mother was resident in New Zealand for not less than six months before its birth, and by the inclusion of a child born out of New Zealand when its mother was only temporarily absent from the Dominion, or whose mother had continuously resided in New Zealand for not less than 10 years preceding the date of application for a pension. In the 1919 session of Parliament, a further amendment was made. The pension is now 7/6 a week for the widow and 7/6 a week for each child in respect to whom a pension is payable, provided that the aggregate receipts of the widow and her children from all sources do not exceed £1 5/- a week, together with 10/- a week "in respect of any such child. — Ed., The Sun.]

ABITHMETIC AS IT IS TAUGHT, To the Editor of THE SUN.

Sir, —I expect that the public examinations now being held under the auspices of the Education Department are not of sufficient general interest to justify discussion at the present time, but perhaps at some future time you may feel inclined to comment upon the style of examination paper that is still setting the standard of work in our schools. The paper enclosed is a fair sample of the kind of thing that undermines all our efforts to teach arithmetic in a practical way. I shall say nothing about the interesting conundrum, introduced in problem 2, by the arrival of •750 men without a tin"of "bully" left, who were sent apparently to bring the good news that it had been decided by a high military authority to cut down the iJi months' siege to eight months, and that, accordingly, they had come to help get rid of the rations. Problem 7, | too, is interesting. As we are to assume I that the doors and windows are to be ipapered over, we are left in some doubt as to what we are expected to do with the ceiling and floor. Somo of the problems are camouflaged as real arithmetic; No. 3, for instance, looks like a jproblem in commercial interest, but it isn't one all the Bame, as one would [discover who gavo the answer from the 'tables. No. 4, involving traffic in all 'kinds of vulgar fractions of shares, [ leaves the student a helpless infant in I the hands of the brokers. No. 6 is the kind of wrong-side-foremost, inside-out type of mensuration conundrum wo are expected to teach. Fancy a surveyor

getting the diagonal of ft field from its perimeter. But let that pass. The diagonal is to be known in kilometres to the fourth place. , The data leave the third place doubtful, and no mortal man, without assuming what is not„in the problem, can do more than guess at the fourth place. But I have said enough about thiß paper. I trust the time will come when the examiner in arithmetic will know something about his subject. Meantime, perhaps I have suggested ono reason why emploj'ers of boys from the Secondary schools complain about the failure of the education system. The Public Service geography paper was rather good, but it contains at least one curiositj'. ■ Students are asked to locate a school in Australia from the following data:—

Noon altitude of sun, June 21, 1919, 31} degrees. Greenwich time, 1.30 a.m. We are not told whether the sun js before or after the clock, but, assuming that it is with the clock, latitude and longitude work out approximately 35 degrees S., 157* degrees 8., which result I am sure even the examiner will admit, if he consults the-map, is an indication that the pupils of the particular school "in Australia" are working under grave disadvantages. But perhaps it was a school of porpoises or a two-up 6chool on the Moeraki.

I conclude with an unusual occurrence suggested by the Public Service mathematics paper. Problem 11.—In a mathematical paper A gets 156 marks, and B just passes. A gets 90 per cent, for algebra, and twice as many marks for geometry as B gets altogether. B gets 10 marks for algebra and 40 per cent, for geometry. Find total marks assigned to the paper, given that equal marks are allotted to geometry and algebra; and also find the pass marks. Answer:

„ „, Algebra. Geometry, Total. Possible marks ..80 80 100 A's marks .... 72 84 156 B's marks .... 10 32 42 Notice A's remarkable performance in geometry!—l am, etc., DOMINIE. P-S.—For convenience of reference I attach the full paper:— 1. (a) Simplify 4.8 +. 0.009 74 X 0065 * 0.13 (b) What is 7i per cent, of £2.1948 0.031 2. A garrison of 450 men with provisions for 15 months at the rate of 32 oz. a day for each is reinforced by 750 men, and cannot be relieved for eight months: how many ounces a day must each man be allowed that the provisions may last for that time? 3. Find the difference between simple and compound interest on £6784 12/7J for three and a-half years at 5 per cent, per annum. 4. Find the price of the 3 per cents, when an increase of £5 6/3 per annum is made by transferring to them £4375 from the 31 per cent, stock at 95J. 5. An English manufacturer makes an article, the catalogue price of which is £lO 10/-. A New Zealand firm buys at a discount of 33$ per cent, from the catalogue price, and has to pay an import duty of 40 per cent, on the net cost of the article to them: to make a profit of 20 per cent, on their total outlay, what should they charge for the article? 0. Find the length of the diagonal of a rectangle, the length of which is live times the breadth and the perimeter of which is S6O meters. Answer In kilometers to four plarces of decimals. 7. £2 11/4 was charged for papering a room; of the charge 8/-\vas for labour. The room was 12ft Bin high, 17ft Gin wide, and lift long; the paper was 2Un wide. What did it cost per piece of 12 yards? (Answer to nearest penny.) 8. A metal cylinder open at the ends Is 301n long, has an external diameter of lOin, and the metal is lin thick. Find the volume of metal in the cylinder. A MATTER OF CONSCIENCE. To the Editor of THE SUN. Sir, —I am a conscientious objector. On patriotic grounds I have conscientious objections to candidates standing for Parliament wh,o, during the War, did everything possible to hinder, hamper and thwart the Government from sending soldiers to save the country from invasion and destruction; to candidates standing who have been in gaol for sedition or defiance of the Defence Act; to candidates whom shirkers who would not lift a finger to defend their wives and families are voting for; to candidates whom the following are sup-porting:—Go-slow workers, seditionmongers, anti-militarists, traducers of the country, pro-Germans and rowdies at political meetings. The candidate these people support is no fit person to represent honest, sane and loyal workers. On economic grounds I have conscientious objections to candidates afraid to condemn go-slow methods, when they know,, as everyone does, what the housewives have had to put up with in the matter of rubbishy coal and serious shortage caused by continuous strikes and go-slow tactics; to the hypocrisy of candidates who speak on the high cost of living, yet support strikers and go-slow workers who increase *the cost of living to workers and the general community; to the dog-in-the-manger attitude of extremists who will neither produce coal themselves nor allow others to supply it; to go-slow extremists paralysing the industries of the country and seriously affecting railway traffic, putting the general community to every possible inconvenience. On political grounds I have conscientious( objections to candidates afraid to condemn watersiders refusing to land Newcastle coal and sugar so necessary for the housewives and the children; to the extremists who prate about the freedom of speech—meaning sedition—and then in the large centres denying the right of free speech to their political opponents, and making disgraceful and cowardly attempts to howl them down; to candidates who for months past have been attemtping to make electors believe that in Queepsland the average cost of living has been reduced, when the truth is that, under the Labour Government there, the cost of living is higher than in any other State in Australasia, and, as for its nuances, there have been heavy deficits in different departments, the Premier declaring that there is a rocky road ahead. Finally, I have conscientious objections to conscientious objectors who developed a conscience after the War broke out, when they were liable to be called up for military service.—l am, C C '' CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR.