Building Industry

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31112, 15 July 1966, Page 12

Building Industry

Sir, The Government should release some of the £3 million of contracts held by the Christchurch . Building Controller, as at least five or six large contracts, valued at £150,000 each, are needed to maintain stability in the building industry. These contracts represent less than a third of those held up by the controller. The Tories have brought in immigrant tradesmen under two-year contract under pressure from vested interests to relieve a mythical labour shortage in building and allied industries. Thes» men will be kept on when others are laid off through lack of work. Unemployment would mean that the high rate of repossession orders on time-payment goods, e.g., furniture and television sets, will increase.—Yours, etc.. DISILLUSIONED NATIONALIST. July 10, 1966.

China Sir—Two chapters of Felix Green’s “A Curtain of Ignorance” cannot camouflage the military forces which imposed Communism on Tibet. “Pacator” should also read Loren Essler’s “China,” chapter 8: “Mao’s view that terror was a necessary political tool prevailed. Peasants driven into a frenzy by Communist agitators beat defendants to death on the spot. Firing squads eliminated millions.” All this in China and Tibet in 1950. Anyone admiring China in New Zealand, which has twice fought against “might is right,” is probably either a simpleton or a masochist, conditions which nurture the seeds of communism. The primary aim of securing Tibet was strategic, not concern for the welfare of Tibetans. It is now the same with Vietnam. Chinese sympathisers would be foolish to believe China aims to conquer the southern countries fofr their own good. China, as was Germany, is now very ambitious, and over-conscious of past glories.—Yours, etc., A. B. CEDARIAN. July 14, 1966.