UNDERCURRENTS.

Waikato Times, Volume 102, Issue 17220, 1 October 1927, Page 6

UNDERCURRENTS.

IN THE DRIFT OF LIFE (By “Seekcr.”i HIGH COST OF CHARITY. “Well, they cleared £IOO, and the hospital people are getting th'e radio. Wc needn’t worry,” said Mad, when Gwen was protesting against the high expenses of the Reveille entertainment. “But think of all the time and effort the people here put into it,’ Given retorted. “Working day and night for weeks, and spending a good deal, too, some of them. Ann liien to see nearly £4OO go in exes. It’s too had.” “Pass the salt, will you dearie? This is quite a nice lettuce,” said Aunt Selina. (It was tea-time). “After all, any entertainment is a costly way of raising money, but it seems the only way you can get some people to give. Bazaars, too—look at Aunt Rachel, how she slaves for three or lour months in the year—wears herself out for that blessed church bazaar. And all her friends do the same. Stitch, stitch, stitch 1 The ‘ Song of the Shirt ’ is not in it for sweating. And then, when all these women have worn themselves to a frayed edge with work and meetings and the inevitable squabbles, they have to go along and buy each other’s things, whether they want them or not. Awful waste, but it seems to he human nature, I suppose the trouble is that we ordinary folk are so bewildered with all the good causes calling for money that we want a sign to tell us which way to turn. We just won’t bother to take our shilling or our ten shillings along, hut if someone comes around with a collection plate or a Reveille or a Pot Pourri or a Y.M.C.A. ‘drive’ with buttonholes for sale on the street, we meekly submit. It's so much easier to give to the people who push most or offer us a nice entertainment than to think out how best to place the few shillings we can spend on charity.’*

Easy Money. “You’re right there, Aunt,” said Jack. “And the politicians lake advantage of our weakness just as the charity people do. They make us pay through the nose for our tobacco and booze and motor cars and silk stockings and for lots of things we really need, and we pay our taxes that way quite cheerfully. And yet we’d raise a great howl if we had to pay halfas much in straight-out taxes, even on what we haven’t rightly earned.” “Oh, keep off the unearned increment for Heaven’s sake, Jack," said dad.

“All right. I was just going to say I wondered why the politicians didn’t make more use of the idea of gelling funds out of our amusements. Fancy letting so much easy money go to charity? They’ve hardly .made a beginning with taxing our pleasures." “What about the new tax on films?” asked Gwen. “Oh, yes, they’re showing signs oi waking up. But the surprising thing that they don’t tax every show and concert up to the limit, and they could put on a bit extra tax for the more unsavoury picture shows. People would pay it readily.” “Don’t be beastly, Jack,” said Gwen.

“Sorry. Went off at a tangent, didn’t I? It was the gambling I was coming to. Why should the politicians content themselves with revenue from the tote? Why not run a hookies’ shop as a State monopoly in every town and a palsapoo and poker parlour under Government auspices ? They do that openly in Sandakan —British Borneo, you know. You see the sigay ‘Gambling Farm’ up as large as4ife ‘ and see the crowds hard at it at nighfep But I don’t see that it’s a hit less moral than taking revenue from gambling on the tote. Why the politicians here in New Zealand oufeht to get two or three millions out of gambling if they organised it properly, and then they could reduce the income-tax on the poor folk with ten thousand a year and throw every bit of the unearned increment to the land sharks.” “Stop it, Jack,” Aunt Selina interrupted. “What’s the use of trying to imagine how much worse things might be?”

“It’s the rotten hypocrisy that I hate.”

“Oh, well, I suppose I’m a hypocrite, too. I’m always wanting others to be virtuous and self-denying where I can’t manage it myself. But anyway it’s no use ranting about our awful politicians. Tbey’ll only change their tune when we all give them a lead. And not many of us are inclined to give up what comes to us, even if we’re not properly entitled to it. Maybe some day we’ll hate moral robbery just as we hate legal robbery now. Maybe Jennie and Jim will be too proud to take the profits Dad has made. I can imagine a time when Dad would come and say, ‘Here, Jim, take this thirty thousand to give you a good start. I had to start with nothing myself,’ and Jim would answer, ‘What do you take me for, Dad? I’m as good a man as you and I’m going to start off scratch, too. Or at most I’ll only take my fair share with the hundred fellows*’ at the works who’ve helped you to make this thirty thousand,’ and Had would not say ‘You durned young fool,’ but, ‘Good boy, go to it.’ I can just imagine the time miglM, come when people, young or old might be too proud to take what doesn t belong to them.” * “Seems a long way off, said jaca. “You never know,” said Aunt Selina. “This blackberry jelly of Millie s is delicious.”

LYNCHERS LOSING CASTE. There were nine lynchings of Negroes in the United States in the first half of this year. The number is much lower than a few years ago. On this subject : the World To-morrow (New Y'oi'k) says; “The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People announces that there is a steadily growing expression of sentiment in the South that tends to make lynching a disreputable sport. More and more the influential agencies of the white South are putting the stamp of their disapproval on lynchings and mob violence. This fact can be contrasted with 20 years ago, before the Association began \ its propaganda and- expose of lynching. At that time editors, preachers, Ppli- ! ticians, and even government officials : either condoned or justified lynching, i The Association now has in its posses--1 sion evidence that most Southern editors of the larger newspapers, as , well as government officials, a few | politicians and some preachers, ar@ | openly opposing lynching.” i FRIENDSHIP. I ! Wheat stands green and shining in tne i fields of North China; In the South land rice stretches slim fingers from a watery bed; But the wheat and the rice are both | food for us who hunger. My friend and I are of different lands But if in lhe heart of each there grow The tender, green shoots of friendship t We shall be fed. —Dorothy Rowe, in “Unity.”