Citizens Say

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 513, 16 November 1928, Page 8

Citizens Say

(To the Editor.)

REPEALING UNPOPULAR ACTS Sir, — Now that the voice of the people has been declared at the polls, will not nembers now elected follow the evident desire of the populace? Order-in-Council regulations, the Transport Acts, the Mental Defectives Act, the Opticians Bill, the Dangerous Drugs Act. All these and others are superfluous. They should be repealed, and members of the new Parliament are duty-bound to repeal them. PARE. COUNCIL INTELLIGENCE Sir.— Wo have always asked ourselves questions about the intelligence of the present City Council, and now we have a sample of it. Yesterday, apparently fifteen of its members were nominated for seats on the Transport Board, and the 27 present had to vote, leaving six names untouched on their ballot papers. Two voting papers were informal! Yet nothing could have been more simple. We wonder whether the city electors are going to repeat history and provide another nine days’ wonder when the council election results are announced next April or May. MUTT AND JEFF. WOMEN ARE IN STEP Sir.— Were I not possessed of a healthy contempt for the writings of your correspondent, “A Man in Place,” I would approach your columns in trepidation at the pearls of wisdom which fall from this sterner stuff of which men are made. But before the smoke of the election battle clears—and the atmosphere is still thick with the political haze —I wish to have a word about his letter upon woman’s proper place. True, sir, as your correspondent says, the electors placed the five women candidates at the bottom of their respective polls. It "has not occurred to “A Man in Place,” however, that this selection is a reflection upon the intelligent choice of the people. Neither has it occurred to him that women, far from wishing to usurp men’s place, merely desire to function in tho administrative sphere in which man has hopelessly and miserably failed. The mess of New Zealand politics is th< delightful handiwork of man. The hand of man, also, is materially retarding women’s chances in having a justifiable say. Woman is quite in step with progress, sir, so why not let her help? ONLY A WOMAN. PEACE IS VIRTUE Sir.— Perhaps I am eccentric, but I am a strong advocate of the peaceful life. Discord jars on me as much as a soapmaker’s. almanac print of a village belle, plucking hideously coloured bunches of grapes, jars on the senses of a connoisseur who has spent an afternoon in a restful art gallery. Yes, I am a lover of peace. So it will sound contradictory when I admit that I take a more or less active part in Auckland sports controls. Now , sir, all these petty grievances about our Olympic representatives are futile and | distasteful. More of the hopeless

stirring up of trouble in our sport of swimming will mean loss of public faith, in unjust proportion, to those who want well conducted and orderly .-port. Unless these wrangles are dropped immediately New Zealand will attain the position of the hapless swimmers of Australia, who are discovering that all sorts of “sensations” took place among the Olympic representatives. Indignant people who have never taken an interest in clean sport have found meat and drink in disturbing allegations. I consider that such scandalmongering will cause endless harm. The New Zealand public had sprung on it this week a regrettable hint of a “sensation” in our own Olympic team. But I, for one, still have faith in the common sense and excellent judgment of the average New Zealander. Am X wrong ? | THE MODERN WAY Sir, — The idealistic patriots in our midst ; have food for reflection in the substance of the reports on Wednesday's Part Darwin riot. Where is the tfaditional efficiency, discipline and rigorous control of our proud British Mercantile Marine? It would seem that in these things—the factors which made the Empire what it is to-day—-we are slipping back and allowing the deceptive “rights of man” to undermine that vital, absolute control that makes for safety on sea and land; in peace and war. Shades of old Bully Hayes, Bully Forbes of the Lightning, and lighting Paddy Gilroy, the whaler — men who carved their way through lawless daj's! They would turn in their graves to read: “The captain . . . tried to restore order . . . someone hit him, smashing his glasses. . . . another blacked his eye One man seized a crowbar and went to hit the master . . . fortunately he was prevented from doing so. ... A man came into the dining saloon, laid his coal-blackened hands on the white cloth and said: ‘Captain, you are no man, and I’ll tell you so to your face.’ ”... If better conditions for seamen bring this sort of thing in their train, let us have the good old days when fist, belaying pin, and revolver were at the back of discipline and safety on ships. OLD TIMER. PARTY POLITICS Sir,— I- or the good old Liberals who passed into the catacombs of silence in 1911 that they might mourn the ascendancy of Torydom, the millenial dawn has come at last with the return of their loved leader to power. In their time of exultation it is well that chastening words should b<* breathed to their ears. I have been reading the Hon. Bertrand Russell's ‘‘Sceptical Essays,” and one particular piece of sceptical thought of his is worth keeping in mind. Here it is: “The common interests of mankind are numerous and weighty, but our existing political machinery obscures them through the scramble for power between different parties. A different machinery, requiring no legal or constitutional changes, and not very difficult to create, would undermine the strength of party passion and focus attention upon measures beneficial to all.” SCEPTIC.