Citizens Say —

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 450, 4 September 1928, Page 8

Citizens Say

» (To the Editor.)

A HOUSEHOLD PEST Sir, — Pleas© allow me space in your progressive journal to inquire of your readers if any of them know a good recipe to banish fleas. I live in a new house on an estate recently opened, and the furniture and bedding and so on also are new. Several so-called remedies- have been tried, including camphor dissolved . in methylated spirit and turpentine, sheep-dip and various well-known insecticides, but without avail. This plague,'for such it is, is growing and adjacent neighbours are also complaining. I wonder if the Health Department could provide a recipe for the distruction of this pest. Thanking you in anticipation of receiving at least one good cure. DISTRACTED. A SUGGESTION Sir, — I have the following suggestion to offer which, if adopted, might prove very successful. Firstly, make it compulsory that each individual out of work report to an employment board which would be set up. This employment board would have representatives (just as a wholesale firm would have its salesmen) and it would b© their duty to call on every firm or employer of labour to ascertain just what can be don© to take on more hands, and at the same time to suggest methods which would cause more labour to be utilised. In this city there are thousands of employers and thousands to be employed. Compulsory registration would be necessary, the unemployed men would have to fill in a form with particulars. These details would be given to the different representatives, who would then make it their business to fit the unemployed man into the position which is most suitable for him. It would be found that good, live representatives of the employment board would have the effect of placing hundreds of men in positions. In short, these representatives would sell or arrange employers to take up the surplus labour offering. SALESMAN. THE CYCLE Sir, — The leader in your issue of Friday last dealing with unemployment is written in such a strain of airy badinage that one wonders whether your readers are intended to take the last paragraph more seriously than the rest. After saying that “Germany is enjoying a record prosperity,” you ascribe this prosperity to “the ancient fact that the German works hard for his money and lives simply,” and you conclude by saying: “That, after all, is the only cur© for unemployment.” ‘ The German worker is not buying

the goods he is producing, because he “lives simply,” but the produce muse be going somewhere and is being paid for, because you tell us that “the German nation,” not the worker, is enjoying a record prosperity. Obviously if the German worker were sharing this record prosperity lie would not be compelled to “live simply.” I think that your readers should be informed at this point who, or what, comprises the German nation; which section of that country is enjoying prosperity and whicli is “living simply.” If we applied your “cure” to every country in the world and caused every worker to “work hard” and “live simply,” who would then consume the goods which would be produced? No one country would be able to buy from another, and consequently no one could be profitably employed even on wages of a handful of rice a day. I do not agree that the unemployment problem is so easily soluble as you would have us believe in your leader. Here is the root of the trouble, in my opinion: The hiatus between rising prices and the lethargic (and sometimes non-existent) adjustments of wages. The time comes when the output cannot be at prevailing prices. When signs of this appear a mild panic sets in. Banks become cautious, new loans are hard, old ones are re-written, perhaps called in; stocks are unloaded, prices fall, further production becomes unprofitable, business is retarded, workers lose their jobs or work short time, until the time arrives when accumulated stocks are exhausted and industry is again accelerated, and so the cycle goes on. CHAS. BAILEY.

RbSKILL ELECTION Sir,— In Roskill, next election at any rate, transport is going to dominate party voting. Miss Melville, the official Reform candidate, was a member of the City Council which advocated the passing of the Motor Omnibus Act, while Labour advocated the nationalisation of commerce and transport. Roskill, having tried the ills of nationalisation of transport, is unanimously in accord that it is a plague that has depreciated suburban values by hundreds of thousands of pounds A public meeting of Roskill electors js being held in the Mount Roskill Hall on Wednesday night to discuss the withdrawal of Messrs. Potter and Morrison from candidature in the election. Electors contend that once a candidate accepts nomination, then he cannot withdraw except by the consent of electors at a public meeting. The interference of party organisers is resented, but as it is only fair to hear both Mr. Potter and Morrison before passing judgment and choosing another candidate, the opportunity is given these gentlemen to meet the electors. One provision of the meeting will be that both these gentlemen will, before addressing the electors.

undertake to abide with the reque*: of the meeting, irrespective of thftir party’s requests. The result of this meeting is going to have its effect all over the Dominion and will settle the question whether it is the party or the elector who is to have supreme command of a candidate’s actions. HAROLD SCHMIDT 3/9/28. SUNDAY OBSERVANCE Sir, — To answer Mr. Paap’s positive creeds and theories in reference to arbitrary data for religious rites is futile. Even Christ Himself taught forbearance in such matters when, on the Sabbath, he told the Pharisees “To go and learn what that saying meaneth. I will have mercy, and not sacrifice,” Matt. xxii. 7, and Hosea vi. 6, showing that moral, and not positive, duties make up the true life of religion. And His query: “What have national decrees to do with religion?” provesdesire to avoid and dispute the predetermined agency of national government for a united observance of a divine ordinance. Like the Pharisees who joined the Herodians to trap Jesus, he joins forces to undermine national agreement with ecclesiastical wisdom in appointing a universal sabbath. Christ’s reply (Matt. xii. 17 and 18) “Why tempt ye me?” and “Render unto Caesar,” etc., is sufficient for his needs. Christians must submit to temporal authority up to the limit of conscientious clemency. His four arbitrary exactions are not rabid decrees enforced by Christ—they are but symbols of what we can do t<» perpetuate His memory. What need for the Bible to stress the Jewish Sabbath? „Is it not a Jewish history written for the Jews? I agree with him when he quotes i. John v. 3. God's commandments are not grievous, bu: we can make them very grievous by our arbitrary rituals, and a controversial ambition to destroy Church unity. We must remember the gentle patience of the apostles (Acts xiv> when accepting Gentiles into memlfr* ship of the Christian Church. The pastor’s attitude is intolerant and incompatible with Christian fortitud-. and its ambitions to create “Peace and goodwill to all nations upon earth.” x J. WILSON.