PUBLIC OPINION

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20389, 4 January 1938, Page 9

PUBLIC OPINION

A« expressed By correspondents, whose letters are welcome, hut t«* whose view, we have no responsibility. Correspondents are re guested to write In Ini. It Is essential that anonymous writers enelose their proper names as a guarantee of good faith. Unless this rule le compiled with, their letters will not appear.

NAPOLEONIC FINANCE

(To the Editor) Sir,—l am not going to follow “Student” into his Douglas credit \ trap, but I retain my interest in { Napoleonic finance. It was such that - t he had to sell Louisiana —an empire— | for a mere song, and he tapped the ] wealth of the conquered nations to an j alarming extent. I would like , “Student” to answer “W.F.’s” ques- ; tion. Are we to believe that the many • campaigns were financed by paper . issues? ; As for the British system of finance, i it carried the nation through, enabled , it to help the allies, and gave the ; country a wonderful start in securing industrial supremacy. If France hid no debt, and Britain was staggering under one, how does “Student” account for the progress of the British and Hie complete exhaustion of the French ? —I am, etc., OLD BOY. Hamilton, January 3. FROZEN LAMB (To the Editor) , Sir, —Spine years ago a party of Australian farmers came to the Dominion, studied our methods, and then said they were going back to beat us at our own game. I have just seen the meat deliveries in London in the first half of December —that is, for the Christmas trade. Australia delivered 428,000 carcases of lamb, South America 100,000, and New Zealand 198,000 carcases. It looks as though our friends on the other side of the Tasman were right after the early trade, and it is the one that pays best. New Zealand apparently had plenty on the way, for the killings to Decern- ; her 15 totalled 1,449,000 —an in- j crease of something like 540,000 on | last season; but unless a lot reached | London after December 15 there wouid ! be little hope of catching the Aus- I tralian total. 1 agree with a corre- ! spondent in your columns some time I ago that the districts really suitable 1 for the early trade should specialise I in it and so help the Dominion to meet the competition.—l am, etc., ROMNEY. I Ngaruawahia, January 3. j

LOOKING AHEAD

RACE SUICIDE

(To the Editor) Sir, —Yes, most of us look ahead at the beginning of the year—and guess. This year, however, there seem to be a few things that look more or less certain, and the biggest, in my opinion, will be a trade agreement between the United States and Great Britain. I have read somewhere that at the discussions at Washington both , Canada and Australia will be represented, so suppose that steps will be ; taken to have New Zealand’s interests watched. The interests will not all be what the Dominion may get, but what she can reasonably be expected to give. Here is the way one of the leading American papers looks at the matter: “The important thing to-day is the political Implication which lies behind economic co-operation. Secretary Hull hopes that an Anglo-American trade agreement will soon bring at ; least 30 nations together in the freer ! trade movement. Some observers , have attempted to read Into this the intent to organise at least an economic 1 front against Fascism and aggressors. This is true to the extent that there tends to be better political relationship where there is satisfactory trade relationship, and to the extent that improved trade among the democracies tends to increase their military strength and mutual sympathies.” Now this is the sort of movement many of us have .been longing to see, and the world gains will be so great that every country must be prepared to make shine concession. New Zealand may have to do it, but in the long run what country stands to gain more proportionately, by the restoration of world trade? Our job will be one of adjustment, and we can do it. —I am, etc., OLD LIBERAL. Hamilton, January 2.

(To the Editor) Sir, —Subject matter submitted by writers on race suicide from time <o time provides much food for thought, and perhaps contention. Experience teaches me that our choice is apparent, but not real. We act in strict conformity with our social, and especially our economic, environment, and our actions are relative to determining factors. This applies with equal force to race suicide, empty cradles, celibate lives and childless v marriages. The contributing factors which determine childless marriages are many. They are 5 reflex of existing conditions, which include economic insecurity from the cradle to the grave, traceable to a vicious money system. Many of the effects arising out of the vicious circle are too terrible to contemplate. We must face facts, however, and bear in mind it is the unfit who * are produced so rapidly. This is the class —silence, abasement, fear, doles, charity, sustenance—that 'will be exploited by a clever and wellentrenched minority. In the process of time progress as we know it may cease, liberty and freedom be chained down to external authority, and many of the horrors and evils of the dismal past revived in a new and devastating scale and in unsuspected guise. On the other hand, race suicide may be transitory, evoked by and connected with circumstances peculiar to a special epoch of the world’s history. —I am, etc., HARRY WOODRUFFE. Auckland, January 1. PUBLIC OPINION (To the Editor) . Sir, —As there is to be an election I some time this year it is necessary, S as you state, for an enlightened public I opinion. There will be some difficult t issues to settle, and that will take I gooffi hard thinking. I have just read an address given by the GovernorGeneral of Canada at Montreal, and 1 am sure that some of his statements | could be applied here very well. Lord Tweedsmuir said there was need for “a mind in hard training—a mind with a just sense of values, with quick perceptions and with complete intelI 1 jectual. honesty.” Then the Governor General made a most interesting digression. He said: “Politics are conducted by a kind of shorthand. Creeds are telescoped into formulas and slogans and catchwords. That is inevitable. . . . The danger begins when we accept these .slogans without understanding what is behind them. Government in a free country depends largely upon intelligent discussion, and you cannot have intelligent discussion if you deal only in empty counters, words with no serious meaning behind them.” An instance of what he meant was afforded in the use of the word “democracy.” It was used habitually yet “bow many of us have ever considered what we meant by it? A Government, without ceasing to be democratic, can be tolerant or intolerant, bellicose or pacific, reactionary or progressive,” the Governor-General declared, for the word denoted machinery, not policy. “But all of us are apt to read into it our own special ideals and to defend a proposal because it is ‘democratic.’ ” Of the word “planning,” as used Jn “planned economy,” Lord Tweedsmuir declared it had become “truly a blessed wortf, a sure refuge for the muddled progressive.” There was a sound idea behind it, he added, for “we realise the defeets of the laissezfaire creed of our fathers. But Jet us be chary of having recourse to planning as a panacea for all our ills. Planning has as strict limitations as the old-fashioned method of go-as-you please,” the Governor-General went on, adding that many things could not he planned find unknown quantities could not be determined except In practice. A rigid plan, without margin and without elasticity, was predestined to failure.” —I am, etc., H. BURNLEY. Cambridge, January 3.