POINTS OF VIEW

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 59, Issue 4186, 15 September 1939, Page 4

POINTS OF VIEW

OPINIONS OF OUR READERS. IT’S A WAY WE HAVE. Sir, —(Spare me if I say a dispaiaging word, but does it not look ridiculous to have all this bother about petrol for private use when official waste is allowed to continue ? Every day we see people licensed, and then we see heavy trucks labelled N’.Z.R. flogging the roads between here and Auckland. Correct me if lam wrong, but I seem to remember when these same trucks were declared wasteful because the railways could carry all this stuff without knocking the roads to pieces. That was when these trucks were privately owned, and it is likely that if they were still privately owned they would have been the first to be put off the roads for want of petrol license. Now they are Governmentowned they don’t knock the roads about, and they don’t use petrol needlessly I Rather a joke, don’t you think ? Or. is it a way we have in the Government ?—I am, etc., GOOD FOR ALL.

FLOCK HOUSE BOYS AND THE NAVY. Sir, —With your consent, I desire to appeal to the “Flock House” boys all over New Zealand to join up with the New Zealand branch of the Royal Navy in accordance with the regulations recently issued by the Government. These boys—they are men now—are sons of British seamen who gave their lives, or were wounded at sea, during the 1914-18 war. They come of the best stock in England, the seamen of the Empire, and I feel sure that they will serve the Commonwealth as gallantly as their fathers before them, and will rally under the flag when their services are required for the defence of their adopted country and the whole Empire.—l am, etc., EDWARD NEWMAN. Marton.

PETROL RESTRICTIONS. Sir, I would like to take this opportunity of expressing my views on the present petrol restrictions for private cars. I think it would be more equitable to allow, say, one gallon of petrol a horse-power a month. This would mean that the 10 horse-power car, doing, say, 35 miles a gallon, would have 350 miles of motoring a month, and a 20 h.p. car doing, say, 18 miles a gallon would have 360 miles running. The extra output of petrol' would be compensated for by the number of cars on the road under 10 horse-power, and this would not penalise the owners of big cars to the same extent and would also ease the tension in the motor trade. Hoping this suggestion will be considered by the authorities, as I think this method of rationing would prove more satisfactory.— I am, etc., C.L.R.

REPLY TO J. RIDDELL. Sir, —(Humbug is the greatest of all the arts. We ail commence learning it at birth; it may be that we commence learning it pre-natally. Because of this it becomes a comparatively easy pastime for my charming opponent, possessing as he does a thorough knowledge of mass-psycho-logy, to write up half a column of platitudinous flapdoodle that he is pleased to regard as an answer to my letter “ Christianity and the Social Order.”

Sir, at the outset I venture the opinion that your readers are as little interested in the personal views of my opponent as they are in the views of the writer—that is, unless the said opinions may be substantiated by evidence, historic or otherwise. It is perfectly obvious that my learned friend is as little acquainted with the cult he seeks to defend as a monk of the Middle Ages with electricity. While he makes no attempt to deny that the element of freedom and liberty we enjoy to-day may be attributed to the untiring zeal of antiChristians my opponent asserts with his tongue in his cheek, that to take the nineteenth century Christianity and compare it with the material progress of to-day is absurd. It is absurd, but the absurdity rests entirely on the shoulders of those who foolishly attempt to draw parallel lines between Christianity and material advancement. .Christianity, both ancient and modern, is as inconsistent with material progress as fire is to water. Mjy word picture of nineteenth century Christianity is not'a supposition, as suggested by my opponent, but an historic fact. Moreover, the inference to be drawn from my previous letter, which my friend conveniently ignored, was that whatevei’ reforms Christianity has undergone in recent times the credit is due wholly to the pressure brought to bear upon it by the secular State and by the everincreasing spirit of humanitarianism. My friend’s assertion that “not one farthing’s worth of progress is made in a religious controversy” is pure humbug—the method of reasoning that is inherent in the Christian apathist, who is as little acquainted with the ethics of his profession as he is with the man in the moon.

Admittedly, there is little progress to be made by the controversial tactics of my friend, but to all who are sufficiently intelligent to accept the supremacy of reason religious controversy demonstrates unquestionably that Jesus is not an historic personality and that the claims of Christianity are false. My answer to my opponent’s avowed displeasure of my ridicule of the clergy is simple. If these heavensent magicians will insist on teaching as sober truth the folklore and mythology of primitive man they are no less immune from ridicule than my learned friend, whose vanity prompts him with the hope of impunity to

flutter his pretty wings in the candle of free thought. Says Sir .P. Chalmers Mitchell, C.8.E., F.R.S., D.Sc., LL.D.: “ Organised religion has become one of the evil forces in the world, and the first business of all prudent people will be to root it out.” That statement may be justified in a thousand ways. I was in Melbourne when Judge Foster, a thorough-going humanitarian of the High Court of Victoria, had occasion to call as a witness for the Crown a small boy. Testing the reliability of the lad, His Honour asked him what would happen Were he to tell a lie, whereupon the boy replied, “ I would go to Hell.” “ Don’t you believe it, sonny,” remarked the judge. “ There is no such place.” For this and for the further comment that it was a crime that such hideous doctrines were being taught to children the learned judge became the target of abuse from the Lord High Salvation Ranters of both Catholicism and Protestantism. These same reactionaries to the “ material progress ” that my learned friend prattles of did their damnedest to prevent the World Union of Freethinkers from holding their Congress in London in 1938. “ Stop this wicked, godless conference ! ” was thencry to the Home Secretary. Fortunately their petition failed, but, as might be expected of them, they resorted to slander and defamation of men and women whose names are a byword in the wo;-ld of science and culture. They bellowed Communism until their orthodox throats became hoarse, and on the day set aside for honouring the memory of Charles Bradlaugh, a name that spells righteousness in capital letters in the history of political and social reform, a mob of nice Christians desecrated the grave and removed the bust of the man who once stood in the Commons and said, “ Without free speech no search of Truth is possible; no discovery of Truth is useful. Without free speech progress is checked,

and the nations no longer march forward to the nobler life which the future holds for man. Better a thousandfold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech. The abuse dies in a day, but the denial slays the life of the people and entombs the hope, of the race.”

This prophetic utterance finds its water level in Germany to-day, and it is my reply to my all-wise friend who advocates the blue pencil—who ■would boycott and ban the opinions of those who decline to sit with him in the nursery of civilisation, playing with his Semitic God split up into three inane sections of father, son, and ghost, his tawdry jeweller’s heaven, and his red-hot-poker department for departed sinners.—l am, etc.. DEXO.