CORRESPONDENCE

Hokitika Guardian, 29 October 1920, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE

| COST I OF LIVING, I (To the Editor.) t Sir,—'As 'butter lias readied such an exorbitant price, would it not be possible to petition the Government to allow margarine to be imported into Near Zealand: duty free. In Britain it is only the wealthy who buy butter and as our farmers are so intent on having overseas prices for their butter let them have tho overseas markets also. Of course the profiteers will, raise the cry that margarine is detrimental to health (it is marvellous how much hypocrisy greed will develope in people), but anyone who is not prejudiced or interested in the Butter trust knowns that margarine manufactured under proper supervision is more healthful and stale butter, and only an expert could tell the difference between margarine and good butter. A working, man with a family of children cannot possibly buy butter at present prices and the autumn sugar shortage made it impossible to make the usual supplies of jam. Did the sugar shortage have any connection with present butter prices? Our Government has a lot to say about health welfare etc. of the chil-'J dren, so surely they cannot refuse to allow children to be supplied with the necessary food they require, and some of the best doctors in the old land say that margarine is a good substitute for butt Cir. I have often wondered that some of our Ministers of the Gospel who battle so fiercely against the evils of drink and gambling make no protest against the wholesale gambling in

the common necessities of life. No on t >. is compelled to either drink or gamble, but we are compelled to submit to all manner of, one might say robbery, in the buying of our food. How seldom we hear out- Ministers give a sermon from Luke 12 chapter, from verse 16 to verse 20.—-I am etc., MOTHER.