MILITARY SERVICE BOARD METHODS.

Waikato Times, Volume 89, Issue 13892, 18 October 1918, Page 6

MILITARY SERVICE BOARD METHODS.

(To the Editor.) Sir.—Your correspondent on the above subject, in his attempt to belittle the Military Service Board, says they should make an exhaustive investigation into tach ease before coming to a decision. lias he done so, is he aware that only one-eighth of the people of this country are engaged in primary production? Yet they produce something like 90 per cent, of our export revenue. Is it any wonder that there is such a howl throughout the country about the high cost of living, when such a large percentage of the people are living by the retail, or unproductive, trades? Surely any man has got enough sense to see that the whole burden of our ever-increasing debt will have to be borne by our primary productions, and the man that interferes with tlieia expansion is standing in his own ligh\. Military Service Boards were engaged to decide where a man would best serve his country. 1 fail to see why any unbiassed person should find fault with the local Hoard's decision in granting sine die exemption to the manager of a large farmers' company, who have financed the farmers to close on half a million, and a lot of them sine die men. From the fuss your correspondent is making over this case, you would think the man was a whole regiment. He must have a verypoor case when he has to go to the other side of the world and drag Sir

Auckland Oeddes into his argument; that gentleman did not include New Zealand in his speech. He wag referring to a country where there was the greatest individual wealth, and the greatest poverty.—l am, etc., E. \Y. BEER.