THE RISING GENERATION

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22514, 23 September 1938, Page 5

THE RISING GENERATION

TO THE EDITOR, OE Til PRESS. Sir, —The statement by the Labour Party published recently in the press should not pass unchallenged. This electioneering effort does it little credit and carries a veiled insult to the youth of this Dominion. It is unfortunate that a Government with such humanitarian; principles should be unable to see . further than. its' collective nose. If it were not tragic it would be farcical" that a Government should come to believe that its Quixotic idealism was effective. The blurt stresses the care of the risihg generation from the cradle to the grave, State houses presumably being/the grave. Since a Minister, with a touch of pride,v has stated that no gabled monstrosity has cost. less than £BOO (three rooms), and £IOOO (four rooms), it is impossible that these properties will pay either the tenant or the landlord. Loans up to 90 per cent, to build houses leave little likelihood of the buyer owning his property before becoming eligible for the old age pension. These loans are all the more remarkable since one person in six is wealthy enough to buy a motor-car Youth can imagine its children, after being educated under a system which at that remote date will still_ be rich in promises of reformation, being cleverly graded and offered a job at £2 5s in the country. Since we are indebted “to the relief worker for manj necessary improvements.” it is improbable that children tainted with the old aristocracy will be allowed at large though their fathers supplied the money for these improvements. Despite assurances that unemployment is non-existent we are still required to pay £l a year tax. The cost of unnecessary roads, etc., to which youth is now contributing will not continue to be paid so gleefully by his children in a not improbable future depression. Though public credit is public credit —this is the sum total of the explanations we have received after exhaustive inquiries—-£8,000,000 must be paid, as must also the,national debt, which seemingly has been forgotten. Opposing factions in Parliament should eliminate petty recriminations inane remarks, self-congratulation (party)—“virtue brings its own reward”—and apply themselves to constructive criticism. Being composed of supposedly intelligent „ men, the Government should realise that the youth of this country is also supposedly intelligent. as in this “God’s own country,” we are not all.—Yours, etc., SAVAGE PEOPLE. September 21, 1938.