OUR READERS’ VIEWPOINT

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 66, Issue 5595, 22 March 1943, Page 3

OUR READERS’ VIEWPOINT

THAT 15 PER CENT BONUS Sir, —Re that 15 per cent bonus, I saw a letter in Wednesday’s Courier signed Lest They Forget ” about the 15 per cent on wool. That lettei should have been signed “ I Have Forgotten,” absolutely and completely. In the first World War the sheep farmers of New Zealand were paid Is 3d per lb for their wool. Up to this season in the present war they have been paid Is per lb, and there has not been a squeal, although the costs of everything have just about doubled. The British Government recognised the extra costs owing to the war, and, without any request from the sheep farmers, granted an increase of 15 per cent. Instead of paying this increase to the wool-growers, the New Zealand Government is taking 1 per cent to keep the price of wool used in New Zealand at pre-war prices—that is, make a present of it to the public of New Zealand, give a small part in cash, and pay the balance in nontransferable bonds, the only use of which to the wool-grower is to pay death duties when he dies, so that the grower cannot do as “ Lest They Forget ” proposes—make a trust fund for the children of men who have fallen—as the bonds will be practically worthless.

Now I will remind “ Lest They Forget ” what he has completely forgotten. At the conclusion of the first World War the sheep-owners of New Zealand established a fund known as the Acknowledgment of Debt to British Seamen Fund.” This amounted to something over £200,000, and from this fund great help was given to men of the Royal Navy and the Mercantile Marine for their self-sacrifice during the war and to their widows and orphans; and now, after 25 years, several hundreds are still receiving pensions from the fund.

Besides help to many orphans in England, the fund brought to New Zealand, and trained in farming pursuits, 763 British boys and girls, orphaned children of British seamen, under the Flock House organisation, well known to most people, but forgotten by your correspondent.

In January, 1942, a circular was sent to all sheep-farmers asking for contributions to this fund to help the dependents of men killed in this war, so that your correspondent’s proposal was put into effect 25 years ago, perhaps before he was born, in which case he couldn’t be expected to remember, and the Trust is still being carried on.

Your correspondent also forgets that numbers of sheep-farmers fought in the last war, and are in this one. and have cobbers lying on Gallipoli, in Palestine, and in France; and numbers of them have sons at the front now, and perhaps lying beside your correspondent’s cobbers.

Why doesn’t he ask some of the workers to raise a Trust Fund out of their high wages if he wants a grouch, as the sheep-farmers already have one ? We hear of boys receiving £4 to £7 a week, of wharf workers averaging £l2 to £l5, and all other wages equally high. What are they doing with the extra wages they receive ? The .Government doesn’t commander that—it knows what the result might be.

Let Lest They Forget ” put on his thinking cap and try again.—l am, H. H. BABBAGE. Ohaupo Road.