POLITICAL MORALITY

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22508, 16 September 1938, Page 15

POLITICAL MORALITY

to raa editor of the tbess. Sir, —I wonder if there be two standards 9f morality, one for ordinary citizens and businessmen and quite another for politicians and Cabinet Ministers. If an accountant divert trust funds committed to his charge to purF loses not specified in the trust he is iable to prosecution for misappropriation of trust funds and a breach of moral standards. Cabinet Ministers extract from , our pockets the sum of £5,000,000 for the employment fund, although Ministers loudly assert that there is no unemployment, that in fact, “there are more Jobs than men to fill them.” Moreover, they divert the sum of £1,300,000 of these trust funds to purposed not specified in the act, viz,, £655,500 to public works, lighthouses, harbour improvements, roads and bridges, land improvement, irrigation, and native land improvement; and £483,000 to costs of administration of Land and Income Tax, Labour. Native and Agricultural Departments. I am old-fashioned enough to hold that if an accountant used trust funds in his charge after such fashion Tie would be held guilty of misappropriation of trust funds and a breach of the moral laws. Are there then two standards of morality—one for businessmen and another for politicians and Cabinet Ministers? .—Yours, etc., MORAL RECTITUDE. September 14, 1938.