PUBLIC OPINION

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21244, 15 October 1940, Page 7

PUBLIC OPINION

As expressed by correspondent* whose letters are welcome, but for whose views we have no responsibility. Correspondents are requested to write in ink. It is essential that anonymous writers enclose their proper names as a guarantee of good faith. Unless this rule is complied with, their letters will not appear. PRESSURE OF FINANCE (To the Editor) Sir,—The recent pronouncement of the Minister of Finance that he was going to obtain all the money he needs and no argument about it, reminds one of another Minister of Finance who made a similar statement years ago and told the country that it would have to put up with it. This Minister has been in the “wilderness” for some years and he and his party have no hope of sitting on the Government benches unless radical changes are made. The people of this country have been schooled in the principles of liberty and Government talk of the heritage of liberty.—l am, etc.. GILBERTIAN. Hamilton, October 12. RACING OR TRAINING (To the Editor) Sir, —The Minister of Internal Affairs has given his ruling that the Waikato Hunt Club’s race meeting on the Labour Day holiday must be held at the Cambridge course and not at Te Rapa. He assures the objectors that there will be no material interference with the training at the military camp at the course. Apparently the matter is being allowed to rest there in spite of previously apparently well-founded abjections that the training will be interrupted for at least several days and, moreover, that a cost of some hundreds of pounds will be incurred in alterations to the buildings and appointments for the one day’s racing. 'i he Minister says that the military authorities have assured him that the meeting will not unduly disturb the training programme, which will come as a surprise to most people. The totalisator is stripped of its internal fittings and converted into a messroom, and other buildings haVe been adapted for military use. If the totalisator house is to be refitted and again dismantled the mess arrangements of the troops at least must be upset. In any case the objection of the cost has not been explained away satisfactorily. The profits of the meeting, it is understood, were to be devoted to patriotic purposes, but if the cost of holding the meeting equals or exceeds the profits that were expected, what will have been gained? The arrangements in favour of holding the meeting at Te Rapa do not appear to have been weakened one iota by anything that has transpired since the proposal was first mooted.

May I suggest that the cost of preparing the course for the meeting should be assessed carefully, that that sum should be regarded as a donation to the patriotic funds and that the race meeting should be postponed until the military force* evacuate the Cambridge course? It is not pleasant to forego a good day’s sport, but we should at least be sensible about it.—l am, etc., CAM.

Cambridge, October 12.