IN THE PUBLIC MIND

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 121, 25 May 1942, Page 4

IN THE PUBLIC MIND

CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS

RED TAPE PIN PRICKING

(To The Editor)

I am directed by the executive council of the Age Pensioners Association to protest against the latest pin-pricking policy of the present Government, the latest self-elected friends of the workers. On pension day all pensioners were notified that in future pensioners must provide their levy books before any pension can be paid out. We respectfully call attention to the fact that pensioners are supposed to be exempted from levy payments and we of the executive council consider it a policy of wasted effort and absolutely unnecessary to force pensioners to have a levy book, exempted or otherwise. When an old indigent person, after careful examination before a stipendiary magistrate has been granted the right to age benefits this should be sufficient to automatically exempt indigent pensioners from the comEulsory levy and the production of is or her certificate should be considered as sufficient proof of exemption. We are told to avoid waste of paper and labour effort. Here is a chance for our wise administrators to bring down an Order in Council exempting all indigent pensioners. Later we propose calling attention to other anomalies. On behalf of our executive council, CHARLES LAWRIN, Official Correspondent. HOTEL HOURS The resolution passed by the Dunedin Licensed Victuallers' Union of Employers I believe to be sound. Who amongst the working men and women want to dririk beer at nine o'clock in the morning? At nin» o'clock at night, after perhaps 12 hours' work, the only drink a tired man who likes a glass of beer can get is ginger beer or lemonade. True he may find ways of getting it, but why should he have to risk a fine to get it any more than the ginger beer fans? The laws of this country want a lot of amending. In Auckland, for instance, we have a number of mayors and councils to control a small population. In Birmingham, with a population of 4,000.000 people, there is the Mayor and the council. The licensing laws here are just as absurd. I would suggest to those who want to decrease drunkenness that thev should pass a resolution on the same lines as the Dunedin people, which would mean that instead of a lot of quick ones between 5 and 6 p.m. as now, we would have leisurely ones between 7.30 and 10.30 p.m. and so go home sober as they do in the Old Country next door to the enemy. E. A. GREER. WASTE Reading the paragraph dealing with the 100,000 tons of waste paper collected in Britain during a single month, one cannot feel disappointed that the "Weapons from Waste" campaign, which received wholehearted support from the public, was allowed to flicker out feebly after only one week of existence. I understand that the schools, having taught pupils the much-needed lesson that even the youngest may help in the war effort, have now nullified that lesson by dropping the collections. Has New Zealand no longer any need for weapons, and may we now cheerfully revert to the old wasteful methods in spite of the fact, known to most people, that it is by the utilisation of the metal, etc., which we wasted that Japan is now able to wage war successfully on us? In view of the huge response made by the public when asked to collect waste paper and metal and handing it over to the nearest school for transportation to central depots, it might have occurred to the authorities that this was a fruitful source of material worthy of attention. EAGER TO HELP.