What Readers Think Letters to the Editor

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVIII, Issue 23321, 3 October 1945, Page 2

What Readers Think Letters to the Editor

COWS IN BOROUGH Sir,—“Cleanliness” objects to animals being driven in Buchanan Street. I endorse these remarks, as Saltwater Creek is also polluted with animals on streets and footpaths. It requires the attention of the Borough Council.— I am, etc., Sanitary. PARK LAND TRANSFER Sir,—l as candidly admit the intrusion of a vein of satire into the initial sentences of my previous letter as Mr McKee admits justification for allegations embodied in its context. From your contributor's own representations one is almost forced to concede his near approach to recognition as the final authority on civic administration, but such must not be interpreted as a permit for Mr McKee to assume the role of dictator and by continued activity towards neutralising the wish of the people expressed in°the park land referendum, insult the Mayor and a large body of citizens, by discrediting them before your many readers as unfit to be entrusted with a vote. If the majority’s wish rspecting the transfer of park land is not implemented, the referendum takes form as a burlesque. Mr McKee can then become interested in some other agitation set to ensure that “That government of the people, by the people for the people” is banished from the earth.—l am, etc., G. Vaughan Hooper. OPEN SPACES Sir —Democracy is defined as government by the people for the people. The electors of Timaru have the right, through their Borough Council, to control their civic affairs. In most definite terms the people have said: “Give the Hospital Board this small strip of land.” It is strange that the Borough Council's findings, backed so conclusively by the electors, are subject to dispute by Councillor Green. Perhaps there are people who prefer only a five-minute flutter in local administration.

“Health First’s” argument is that because various politicians have stressed the need for wide open spaces that’s all there is to it; consequently, the peonie’s mandate must be ignored. This is tantamount to saying: “Only 25 per cent of Timaru voters are people of vision; the remaining 75 per cent must be directed along the narrow path.” I remind “Health First” that the said politicians are the servants of the people, not their directors. A politician, local or Parliamentary, who plays his personality before a constitutional majority ruling, is destined to find himself on the outside looking in.—l am, etc., R. W. Anderson. BOYS ON FARMS Sir, —In reply to “Farmer's Wife” I and 11, I would say that the former seems to think that the youth of today cannot live without amusement two or three times a week, and that as far as expense to the farmer is concerned, I must say it is almost negligible, seeing these boys pay board and a “tucker tax,” all of which comes off wages. With regard to “Farmer's Wife” 11, her only defence is a jumble of sarcastic sentences which proves the old proverb, “If the cap fits,” etc. I could quote an almost identical case as “Boy's Father's,” only in this instance the boy’s bed of old sacks was in the back of a derelict car in a leaky shed where he spent his evenings (not being allowed into the house) reading by the light of a guttering candle. Your contributor, “Boy's Wellwisher,” gives us a staggering description of a town boy, and I would say that any mother who sends her boy on to a farm, underfed, underclothed, and, to this correspondent’s w T ay of thinking, almost a savage, does not deserve to have a son. However, the hired hand employed by “Wellwisher” would certainly feel his lot had fallen in pleasant places, with a “cosy room, gramophone,” and practically all modern conveniences, after the scanty fare and clothing meted out to him by his parents. She seems, to my mind, to be over indulgent in the matter of lniidays an» week-ends, when the boy comes back from the gay lights of the city not benefited by the change, but father the reverse' Does she not think it would be a kindness on her part to give him less liberty and try to Instil into him some of her Christianity?—l am, etc., "Farm Boy’s Mother.” This correspondence is now closed. Editor, “The Timaru Herald."