Citizens Say—

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 268, 2 February 1928, Page 10

Citizens Say —

TRAFFIC OUTLET Sir, — Recently wishing’ to motor to Mount Albert in a hurry, at about 5 o’clock, I endeavoured to cut out the double delay at Grafton Bridge and at the top of Symonds Street by going by way of Belgium Street. You can imagine how disgusted I and several other motorists felt when we discovered that it was still a blind street. Surely after all these years of discussion the job of taking away the few houses necessary should not be beyond the council? If I remember rightly this work was one of the principal planks of the present Mayor’s electoral campaign. MOTORIST.

SCHOOL FOR SUB-NORMAL CHILDREN Sir, — I was very pleased to read in your paper last night that the Education Board had at last awakened to the need of a sub-normal school in Auckland. I am the father of a four-year-old child who will have to go to school, and it is a great worry to think that this time next year I shall have to give up a good permanent job (perhaps for a casual labourer’s one), sell up my home, leave all relatives and friends and take my child to the Sumner school. I could not bear to have her boarding in a school so far from her parents. Trusting to hear soon of a school being set up in Auckland. A WORRIED PARENT. THE KING’S PORTRAIT Sir. — Standing in a Post Office queue a day or two ago, I watched a person in front buy some stamps and affix one to an envelope carelessly exhibited. Anybody might have observed that it was addressed to a large firm in New York. This is my complaint: The hurried scribe had “banged” the stamp on the envelope so that Ring George stood on his cocked hat, displaying anything but regal dignity. I am a citizen of New York. I get a letter bearing a foreign postmark. Screwing the envelope X find that the stamp carries the image of George V. of England. And my letter is from New Zealand, one of his Dominions! That is the part of his Empire, they say, which respects its King with a fervour not transcended by any other. Sir, no great effort of perception is required to imagine the conclusion drawn by an American receiving so flagrant a token of disrespect. A mere trifle, declares your cynic. Possibly.

(To the Editor.)

But in this day of tension between England and the United States it is often the little things that form the basis of caustic bickerings. Even so small a matter as the inversion of the King’s portrait, a thing of little significance to us in New Zealand, may easily be the subject of sardonic comment among the people of a jealous nation! CITIZEN CLAUDIUS. SMOKED OUT Sir,— Now that the heat is almost unbearable, I would like to keep the windows of my office open, like everybody. Unfortunately, I have to keep them tightly shut and so I am literally baking, as if I were in an oven. There is no surer cure, by the way, for rheumatism caught in the winter time. If I cannot enjoy the “fresh air,” it is because the two chimneys of the kitchen belonging to an hotel down town are about ten yards away and stop exactly at the height of my windows, thus filling my room with unhealthy smoke whenever the wind blows in this direction, which is most of the time. I complained, as did my neighbours, to the Health Department, but the existing laws provided no redress. The architects who inspected the chimneys declared that they were quite all right; of course, they did not care whether the neighbours were smoked alive or not. I also heard—but is it true?—that the municipal authorities would not allow the trustees of the hotel to add to the height of their chimney pipes. thmi^ l t St «f Co £f ole mysel£ with the thought of the unfortunate people * VI "S oloso to the big factories set up lacl? of 6 ?ow ° f , the ? ity (thanks to the town-planning methods) and wh ‘* f re a real nuisance to all. .I I ™ 6 W RI come when factories tousels ?h”?; 1 ' 13 * i]l be compelled to use, as they do in the United States .smoke-burners in the city area:: but Auckland is still young. WELL COOKED.

THE UNEMPLOYED Sir, —- I have been thinking .over the unemployment problem this morning and brought before me a?! very distressing. As I try to unrdX-el this it r °should l not me to , the conclusion that it should not. exist. The war is long past and there seems to be monev Sh ° r h ? r - e racins an d all kinds wofk b Th ?- bUt not enou »h for honest must IS , wrong, surely. Men must have work or starve, Employ-

W * Hi MM S M M M WSSS0 1 ment is the first need in ? ve f y Jf'nndi I feel sure that labour ’ £nlop f,.Ycapihl to blame for their resistance oi The best and only way (“.SLiJy&wl able justice is to work to get rid of strikes an( V _, k hssA 1 bring them about. I once tot in things socialistic wften ejtfne d younger and less experienced. that kicking against a. _bn» t ©e useless, and hurt the kicker is men of common sense win » bo t the face of the powers-tha-will run alongside them. Tn strogsl® ment must take a hand in tai s _, e & and show us what Reform is ,W* I am a friend of the ook Governments, like individu ' bf prove their worth. We can £ ' s t,rv* and see fellow countrymen . lor . , Christianity and common non I bid it. Honest work is the .m eosg I out. This must be found at gtis I There is much developmental w d {o r ■ to b© done. "When work « ■ U«”* I the unemployed the c ° st I should come down —and 2 I