LETTERS TO A SOLDIER

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 87, Issue 201, 26 August 1943, Page 4

LETTERS TO A SOLDIER

Dear Jack, —I noted with interest your remarks about Mr. Jones’ visit. It must have been rather funny. Still. 1 always think he means well, and that's more, perhaps, than can be said for some of the others. However, they will find when the election results are announced that the people's memories are not so short as they seem to think. Also, it seems to me that the people as a whole view many current happenings with a groat deal more clear-sightedness than they are given credit for. Take the lipper House, for example, Members of lhe Government got very hot under the coliar when someone described this as a club for ex-union officials, but if I hey expect the public to be satisfied by this. I’m afraid they’re due for a disappointment. The evidence is too plain. I understand the National Party proposes some sort of overhaul of the Upper House, to make it justify its upkeep, and this proposal should appeal to the public.

Another matter in which members of the Government deceive themselves —not me, though!—is in regard to Government appointments to Party members. Plums have been handed out right and left, as if the qualifications of a man who is paid £l2OO or so a year of the public’s money were not of the slightest consequence. It may not be so to the Government, but it certainly is to the taxpayer, and a great many people will show what they think about it at the ballot box. These are times when standards of both public and private conduct seem to be in jeopardy. It Is up to all of us to do what we can to see that the prinriples of truth ar.-1 honesty remain the governing motives in the lives of men. That, after nil. is ;what you are fighting for. With all our love.—DAD. •