Citizens Say—

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 596, 23 February 1929, Page 8

Citizens Say —

(To the Editor.)

INDEMNITY Sir, — I am very grateful to your correspondent, “M.P.5.,” for his suggestion about insurance or indemnity on the lives of youths forced into this “poison gas chamber.” I am sure many other mothers will also take the hint. I would want a good deal more than £5,000 for any of my boys who suffered the slightest from any such mad experiment. A MOTHER. SMACKED A FIVE-YEAR-OLD! Sir, — Would you permit me through your correspondence column to protest against the infliction of punishment on children in the primer classes of our schools. My little boy, aged five, was smacked for the heinous crime of putting on his shoe, which had somehow come off during lessons. Surely it is a shame when a child, on his tenth day at school, should be punished at all. It certainly does not reflect any credit on the teacher. SPARE THE CHILD. RICHMOND ROAD Sir, — It is safe to say that the proposed Richmond Road tram extension is not regarded as an altogether unmixed blessing by all residents of that thoroughfare. . Many still retain lively recollections of how the City Council’s solid-tyred buses caused dwellings to tremble on their foundations and pots, pans and crockery to jazz noisily. What will happen when the trams thunder down this road, the foundations of -which, —in some sections at least—are quite obviously not all that could be desired for heavy traffic? RICHMOND. TOTALISATOR AND BOOKMAKER Sir.— I suggested to an Australian owner who has raced extensively in New Zealand and, Australia, that he should purchase a certain horse racing at the last Takapuna meeting. He replied: “I suppose they would want £I,OOO for him, as your stakes at the country meetings are so good compared with those outside the A.J.C., in New South Wales.” It is far cheaper to race in New Zealand than in New South Wales, where the dual system is in vogue, and the average New Zealander thinks first of the glory and then the cash. The cash is not the only consideration that attracts New Zealand owners to Australia, it is the desire to triumph that results in so many of our good horses crossing the Pacific. In the same strain I might ask: Was [ it the paltry <£3oo stake that took that sportsman* Geo. Paul, to Dun-

edin? No! The gold cup, and the honour of beating Limerick. No one can afford to fling too much money in the air, but when Geo. Paul gets home, the cheque will be forgotten, but the gold cup never—and that is the spirit of the great majority of New Zealand racehorse owners. It is not the betting, but the beating. I have rather moved away from my original idea —totalisator alone, or totalisator and bookmaker combined. Which will give New Zealand the best bloodstock valuations? If the combination in Australia gives them so much better prices, how is it that New Zealand-owned horses have won so many A.J.C.Derbies and Breeders Plates since 1905, when practically each winner had been priced before his respective race? The New Zealand owners place their values on what can be won in New Zealand, not what can be won from those sporting chaps, “the books,” over there. OWNER OF THREE GOLD CUPS. AN AUSTRALIAN VIEWPOINT Sir, — I am a visitor to Auckland. My friends drawing my attention to this “war dope” controversy. I bought a back file to peruse the various letters appearing. Auckland has, I believe, I a newspaper which is a “safety valve” in ventilating the trend of public opinion. Your cartoonist certainly excelled in his conception of the North Shore poison gas chamber. Several of your correspondents annoy me with their war-croaking, which is inconsistent with pretensions for peace. Influenced by fear, they are like frightened children who imagine ghosts will attack them in the dark. AUSSIE. COUNTRY LIFE AND EDUCATION Sir, — The Sun’s leader (15.U.29) in defence of New Zealand industries puts the case in a nutshell. Too much talk is wasted about settling people on the land. Men who have left the land for softer jobs, and headmasters of secondary schools, lament that few of the outgoing students wish to become farmers. Now we have our Minister of Lands demanding that large estates be cut up into small dairy farms. Does he realise, that this done, the law of diminishing returns will operate immediately? It is not the production per acre that counts in national prosperity, but the production per man. Only the man of exceptional ability, or the man with no family, can make a comfortable living off a small holding, and the last resource of the incompetent is cows. I should like the Minister of Lands to have a quiet talk with the Minister of Education, about the educational facilities afforded the unfortunate children of country parents. The country schools, being the lowest 1 grades, get the worst teachers. Children waste time walking weary miles in Continued in next column},

all weathers, to be ill-taught or allowed to loaf. When they come to enter the Grammar Schools very often they are at such a disadvantage or. account of their poor grounding that they might just as well give up al. hope of mental culture. This is no: an indictment of the country teacher, but the system. To teach 20 to 30 children of all classes requires skill and experience, and these accomplishments find better remuneration in the higher-grade schools. It has been said that parents have a right to be anxious about their children’s education, but they receive scant sympathy from educational heads or the Education Department, being looked on as cranks who imagine their children are the only ones in creation. In the same issue of The Sun there is an article on “Postal Tuition.” Two weeks ago l wrote to the Auckland Education

Board, asking for help in teaching a: home an invalid child and a girl of nine who has three miles to walk over rough, hilly country to a one-teach? school. I have had no reply. To pet an education for my children I must give up my farm and move into towr Until then I am treated as a mild sort of lunatic who thinks her children have a right to an education when it is clear country children don’t matter. Not even dairy inspectors realise the dreadful ignorance of the country-bmi. country-taught milker of cows. Unless the dairy worker receives a sound primary education, including dair. science, he has no chance of acqulrirthe necessary knowledge once he - anchored to the cow. The industrial worker with an eight-hour day ar clean, dry working conditions has 4 heavenly life in comparison with the dairy farmer. If we are to have mor e dairy farmers let us have the count: schools equipped with apparatus : teaching dairy science and teachers

capable of teaching it. LUCY S. LUCKENS.

When this letter was referred to tfr secretary of the Auckland Educati* Board he replied that the board was • possession of the facts of the case a. had been in communication witn . Luckens. The position was that sne • sided within two miles of the Hobson School, but wished to send her to a school three miles away. Education Department's form oi rnment for the correspondence contained the following clauses: (l) * Correspondence School is not . any children who can reasonably pected tc attend a public school. _ application for enrolment must h® ■‘Jv by the teacher of the nearest sen . such school is less than five nrnj* the applicant’s residence. —Ed. Tn « * (Other letters to the Editor w’ be found on Page 5.) NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENT"Justice and Fairplay.”— your letter if you agree tc. Ijunc. tion of your name.—Ed. The o "Disgusted.”—We frequently rece£ complaints from inmates of “ tions about the cooking of meals- leral times we have investigated complaints and have found them ill-founded. Do any of y» m patients support your claims. The Sun.