OUR AUCKLAND LETTER.

Franklin Times, Volume 9, Issue 734, 26 May 1922, Page 5

OUR AUCKLAND LETTER.

“1 FORBID THE BANNSU (From Our Own Correspondent). Auckland, May 19. The “engagement” between the P. and Tj Association and the Bolshevictic Alliance of Labour having been frowned upon by Mr Massey, who has “forbidden the banns,"’ the Association found itself jupon the horns of a dilemma. As it could not very well openly flout) the Government, whose pay it is drawing, the obvious thing to do was to retire from a really very awkward position in as graceful and dignified a manner as possible. Accordingly, it has decided to petition Parliament—-to be allowed to do what the Premier has just declared it cannot and shall not do The fate of the petition, it would not, probably, require a Sherlock Holmes Id forecast Meantime, at any rate, as far as Auckland is concerned, the intending petitioners have the sym- ( r'hy of neither piess nor public. “CROOK' HALF-CROWNS. People who receive change for their bank notes in silver in this city just now re require to have their wits about them. Bad half crowns are as common as colds- A Queen Street business man showed me this week a little pile of these coins which his assistants had taken across the counter in the ordinary way of trade, within a few. do.ys. These “snide half crowns are the best imitations of the genuine article I had ever seen. In make, colour, and weight they are perfect. The design on both sides is sharp and clear. The milled edge is fault ess. The one point in which they are defective is that they wont “ring” when you attempt to “ring” them they fall with a dull flat, sound, with nothing metallic about it. But they are such clever counterfeits that they would deceive almost anyone. Where do they come from ? Probbaly from England or are they “Made in Germany.” T he cost of living bonus. Some of the Trade Unions, I understand, are teriihly indignant over the 5s per week reduction in connection with the cost of living bonus. When the bonus was grange-!, in consequence of the fearfully high preen v’ding for the necessaries of Me die wage-earners accepted vt almost ns a matter of course. They regarded o. ■ R r acl , ns a “right.” And now.

when bread, meat, milk, butte’, sugar, oatmeal, flour, rice, gas and a few other things everybody wants have declined in price, and there is a prospect of their declining in price still further, the wage-ea- tiers, or at any rate, a good many of them, apparently expect the employers to go on paying the full amount of the bonus, ignoring the fact altogether that “circumstances alter cases, ’ and that the sovereign, or rather the pound note, is now worth a good bit more than it was worth even six months ago, and that its purchasing power is slowly but surely growing. The one item that shows no signs of alteration, for the better is house rent, and ,: t! is cei'tainly time that something was done to prevent the exploitation of the public by rapacious landlords and land-ladies. “NOTORIOUS” AUCKLAND. Some indignation has been expressed here owing to the uncomplimentary reference to Auckland made by Mr Mosley, a Timaru Magistrate,; who. in speaking of the moral condition of the Dominion, remarked : “Auckland is notoriously rather worse in some respects than the other centres.” Why this good gentleman should have thus stigmatised the Queen City I don’t know. It is, of course, the largest city in New Zealand; and must necessarily therefore, I suppose, contain more persons of loose morals than smaller places do, and yet having resided myself in Timaru, Dunedin, Christchurch and Wellington, as well as Auckland, I do not think the latter is much worse morally th|an any of the other places I have named. It is certainly not “notoriously worse.’ And neither can I agree with Mr Mos’.ev when he holds our climate responsible for the short comings of our young people, ‘‘ln the warm climate' of Auckland,” Mr Mos ey Is reported to have said, “the home has net the same value to young people as in cooler districts. Except in wet weather the home is chiefly a place to eat and sleep in. Such a state of things tends to weaken parental control.” Unfortunately parental control has become to a very large exten f a dead letter, not only in Auckland, but everywhere else; It is a tendency of the age.

THE JUDGE KNEW. During the hearing of the sedition case at the Supreme Court (on Tuesday last) counsel (Mr O’Regan) painted out that the words “my father and my little Irish mother’ were not used in. the reported poition of the Bishop’s speech., The “Herald” reporter who was giving evidence, replied: “No,- that is sob stuff’ and is not reported in a paper like the“ Herald/” And yet, wonderful to relate, the judge does not appear to' have enquired, after the usual innocent manner of judges when on the bench: “And what is ‘sob stuff’ ?” He knew. Extraordinary, wasn’t it ?