CITY AS TENDERER.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18936, 5 December 1929, Page 9

CITY AS TENDERER.

To the editor. Dear Sir, —In the above connection I do not see the itse of blaming the City Engineer for his action. He is only following the dictates of the party in power when he puts in a tender for council work, and knows full well that he cannot hope to do the job for the money, having in the first place no suitable plant and having to pay over and above the award rate of wages. The huge staff that is employed must be justified, and given enough rope it will not be long before the Engineer’s Department is tendering for such works as the Art Gallery, abattoir improvements, etc., and possibly for buildings carried out by private enterprise. The criticism of .the works recently referred to in the council may be quite justified, but the suggestion that some subordinate is to blame and not the administrative head is not cricket. No reasonable person, whether ratepayer or otherwise, can argue against all work being done by contract. The result would be efficiency and economy, as only about half a dozen practical men would be required to see that the work was properly carried out. Competitive tenders for such works as scavenging, road construction, channel sweeping, street maintenance, etc. would mean an annual saving of thousands of pounds. Take for instance the collection of nightsoil. It was proved conclusively that the contract system was fifteen to twenty per cent cheaper than day labour, and this statement can be proved by the Town Clerk, who would give the correct figures if asked. If all the work were done by contract, the present staff of labourers, etc, would all be absorbed, and the overhead would come down, as only about one-third on the Engineer’s present staff would be required, and he himself would be relieved of a great deal of responsibility. In conclusion I would say “Give it a go, Labour,” and your election for a further term is assured.—l am, etc., PROGRESS. OUR ANIMAL KINSMEN. To the Editor. Dear Sir,—l do not know whether it has ever struck many people what- extraordinary beings we men in general are. For instance, what statement could be more apt than that “ Man, the suppliant for mercy, is himself merciless; man. seeking peace, himself offers only war.” Just consider how we treat those whom we now know (if we know anything) to be fellow kinsmen in the evolving of family life. In our pursuit of sport, food, adornment or knowledge, how much consideration do we give to the rights of animals or plants? How often do we remember that they are sentient creatures like ourselves? Indeed, if we may believe Bose, the Indian biologist, the plants are even ten times more sensitive than men! At this time of the year we are preparing for Christmas festivities. And vet in our own joy we reck not of the pain done to those members family of life less strong and .cynnifig

than ourselves. Could we not rejoice if we made our Christmas bloodless? Sir, I venture to suggest that the voluntary abstention from a blood-shedding diet at this season will add to, not detract from, our own happiness. Sir, I believe that it is lack of thought and feeling, and not some inherent inhumanity in human nature that is the real root of the whole trouble. We are not yet imbued with the evolutionary idea; we are not yet saturated with the fundamental conception of cosmic unity. We do not yet see that the good of the individual depends on co-opera-tion over the whole field of life, and not on the ruthless domination of one living section over another. Some writers have suggested that in the judgment day the living beings whom we have treated so shamefully will be allowed to pass similar ’judgment on us. But two wrongs cannot make one right. Let us, not out of fear for what might happen to ourselves, but rather out of sympathy for all those sentient creatures who, in ignorance and pain, are treading the evolutionary path, of our own free will endeavour to apply evolution’s Golden Rule: “Do to those you count beneath you what you would like those you count above you to do to vou.”—Yours, etc., N. M. BELL. _ St Albans, December 4*