SANDY’S CORNER

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 89, Issue 215, 11 September 1945, Page 4

SANDY’S CORNER

MEET MEETINGS ABOUT MEAT Meet meetings have been held about meat, and it is meet that the Government should meet those meat meetings’ problems meetly. If the Government does’nt meet them meetly, the meat meetings ought to meet Pe.e meetly, and not meet about the bush, but on Parliament steps in order that meat vendors may sell meat meetly and, therefore, make two ends meet as the result of meat meetly sold. In all meekness wo think we’d bettor face up to meeting meat prices meeting somewhere higner up than they are meeting now. unless somebodv is prepared to meet us with a subsidy to make the meat in our pay envelope meet where it used to. In other words, the demand for meat rises and falls according to how much money, plus coupons, you've got to meet it with. And the" price of meat ought to bo fixed on what, costs the meat shops have to meet to make it meat. EVEN MAORI ORATORY IS DYING Recently we referred to the ability of Mr. E. T. Tirikatene, M.P. for Southern Maori, as an orator. It is interesting to read the following comment by a Well.ngton writer: Two maiden speeches were heard (in the House of Representatives) during last week, one by Mr. M. Ratana, the member for Western Maori, and other by Mr. R. Walls, recently elected for Dunedin North. Mr. Ratara, whose slight build is in pronounced contrast to the massive physique of Messrs. Omana and Paikea, has been in the House since the start of the session, but is apparently not a talkative type. His Budget speech lasted only 10 m nut a?. I nis was just 50 minutes less than the time at. his disposal. It was not an impressive performance and marked a further decline from the eloquence practised by Sir Maui Pomare and Sir Apirana Ngata. The Maori members to-day, except for Mr. T rikatene, who maintains something of the oldt.me traditions, are little more than, voting units. WE SHOULD FEEL THANKFUL. The more the grim story behind the cruel conquests made by Japan is told, how much stro. ger must be our realisation that we are a very, very lucky country! Few among us realised, even al its worst, how gr.m and cruel was the shadow almost extending to the wreck of the Port Bowen, on the sands of Castlecliff, where

game, not too-well-equipped men stood and gave the password to the passing duty officer, night alter night. If the test had come doubtless we would have lived to meet it as well as those who lived through it in many countries not so fortunate as this. And if we had d.ed we would have died as they died. But how grateful we should all be that Ihe test did not conic, and how determined we should be in the future that, such dark dayt are not permitted to return, dark days when all that men had to protect Imlay with were but pocket knives. Oh, yes, wc can afford to look back upon it all now, and marvel at. how the great resources of nations, bigger than us, did what they did. We can afford a pat on the back ourselves, too. because we rallied to meet the threat when the pick of our manhood was elsewhere. But we somet. mes wonder whether we are as thankful as we ought to be, and as determined now as we ought to be, that what has passed will not have passed in vain. Will the next generation send Brother Chamberlain to another Munich with another umbrella, and will another generation ask a Home Guardsman to defend Imlay with a pocket knife? We sav pocket knife purposely, for a special reason, because the knife was the worst of weapons in the hands of the worst ot foes—the fanatical Jap!