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Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 246, 1 June 1922, Page 3

* To The Editor. Sir. —In recent issues of your paper there has appeared articles and questions aimed at Mr Holland M.P. It is not in defence of Mr Holland that I write, as he is pre- , pared to meet any opponent on-the platform in debate providing they have a ease worth debating. What I know and what I want the unwary to know is the tactics of the self-styled “Welfare League.” The head of this league is Mr Skerret, a legal luminary, who at a recent conference of Chambers of Commerce delivered himself in this strain: “The ideal for which the League was striving was to inculcate in the employers and the workers an enligthened unselfishness; not the cold thoughtless selfishness that was leading the country to industrial ruin, but that with due regards to the rights of- others, and which, practised in that spirit, was certain to return benefit to those who practised it.” Now, Sir, about the same time the Board of Trade took proceedings against certain firms for alleged profiteering, in one case the profit put on by the merchant was 40 per cent, greater than the total cost and manufacture and freight. In another ease it was 99 per cent. In the three charges the aggregate profits were-TOO per cent, on total-costs to them, and the Magistrate remarked, “I would not be doing my duty if I did not impose the maximum penalty in each ease . . . . .and had it been an individual within the meaning of the Act who had put on the 104 per ecnt. I would have seriously considered the penalty of imprisonment in at least that charge.” Now, these people referred to were defended by the same Mr C. P. Skerret, K.C., who dilated upon “enlightened unselfishness” before the conference of the Chambers of Commerce. The same Mr Skerret t, of the “Welfare League,” contended that a more unsatisfactory or unsubstantial prosecution had never been submitted under the Board of Trade Act. Reverting to his speech before the Conference, lie deplored the fact that the (Well fed) League movement was received with suspicion. It could not be understood that its members were working for the common weal. Could anything be more hyprocritical than endeavours of this League of chameleons trying to ram one thing down the necks of the unwary and unthinking, and on the other hand to defend the profiteering and proved robbery by certain firms who bad to disgorge their illgotten gains by the infliction of heavy lines, and this during war period. Perhaps it was their particular brand of “Patriotism,” and defended in Law Courts by the President of the “Welfare League,” Mr C. P. Skerret, K.C., whose articles distributed in the papers broadcast seek by peculiar means to cloud the real issue, whose “enlightened unselfishness” seeks to cover up its tracks by a name that should only he used by a body that can honestly say that it is concerned in things that matter, not a diatribe of questions, that would disgrace a first standard schoolboy. We don’t mind the criticism of the “Well Feds” as they only represent themselves, but it shows us they have at present a terrible feeling that Labour is coming into its own, and when we see them practising their ideal of “enlightened unselfishness” as preached by their President in the interest of the cotton merchants, its time to be suspicious of their aims and.objects. At present they cut no ice with evenly balanced minds Verily they have got the wind up. Yours, etc., E. G. MARTIN. [IF the aims and objects .of the Welfare League “cut no ice with evenly-balanced minds” our respected correspondent should surely have kept silent. —Ed.H.]