Citizens Say—

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 599, 27 February 1929, Page 8

Citizens Say —

(To the Editor.)

“GO ON THE LAND” Sir, “Go on the land!” That’s the advice politicians in fat billets, and city men universally give. “Produce more,” say they, while at auction cabbages sell at Is tid a sack, potatoes 3s 6d, tomatoes Is 3d a case—barely the price of containers. Yes, “Go on the land!” Surely the “goer” deserves to be kept in a public institution, board free, for the rest of lais days. DLORAH. COMPETITIONS Sir,— Wliat is the Auckland Competitions Society thinking about? No explanation where last year’s money went to! A few in the music section were paid; the others went without their prize money. Why the favoured few? Disappointed competitors are not going to be made fools of again, I can assure you. In any case, there is too little time for preparation between now and May. ONCE BITTEN. The president of the Competitions Society, Mr. Andrew Menzies, states that the question of prizes will be discussed when the committee meets in the first week in March. —Ed. The Sun. THE MALOLO’S VOYAGE Sir,— The report that the Matson liner Malolo is scheduled to call here next spring with American tourists renders the comments on that subject in Monday’s Sun very much in order. And unless the business communities of this country are not just “false alarms,” care will be taken that no repetition of the “Carinthia-Franconia disaster”—that’s what it was—occurs. We have something to sell and cannot afford the luxury of parading “patriotic” complexes of a weirdlydistorted order, and well calculated, moreover, to offend prospective customers. It is earnestly to be hoped, both in the interests of business and international amity, that before the S.S. Malolo is due here something will have been done to curb or control those citizens who seem to find amusement in the manners and customs of those from another land. D.McW. WAR OF GASES Sir, — It will be, for all time, Germany’s shame that she was the first to use deadly gases in war, poisoning the God-given atmosphere necessary to all living creatures and reducing men to the status of mere rats. If another war is started, the old gases and all the new ones, will be used. It seems to me that the only helmets which could ensure any safety against those deadly gases would be those connected to a small tank containing compressed air or oxvgen, to be strapped on to the shoulders of ail men, women and children (as to the animals, they would have to die without quarter), which helmets would be effective against ail gases, known and unknown. Xo necessity, with that system, to build gas chambers and to use the old-fashioned helmets.

After the explosion of the phosgene tank. secretly built. at Hamburg, the effect of the 11 tons of gas it contained was published in the German Press: more than 300 victims. of whom 12 died.

A person suffering from that special form of poisoning is not, at first, painfully affected. But after three or four hours hydrochloric acid is formed in the lungs by decomposition of the phosgene coming into contact with humidity. The two lungs get badly congested, the patient is suffocating, his face turns blue, the blood becomes blackish and thickens, thus running sluggishly through the capillary veins, palpitations of the heart set in and the victim, fully conscious, lies for three or four hours until death at last releases him from his painful agony. Please keep in mind that German scientists maintain that a war of gases is human and that a German M P lately said in the Reichstag that gases were being manufactured at Schichan. B.P. THE JUDGE’S LITTLE LAPSE Sir, Chestnuts carried on the person as a cure for rheumatism may produce resu . lts > kut your correspondent Rheumatic may be interested to know that the late Judge Ward preferred a potato. Talking to him one day, many years ago, he produced an exceedingly dried and shrivelled tuber and explained that it was a specific against rheumatism. His story was was that he had been told by a gipsy that a stolen potato carried in the vest pocket would secure immunity from the complaint mentioned. Accordingly he went into a greengrocer’s shop and informed the proprietor he had come in to steal a potato. The proprietor said: “You don’t need to do that, sir. I’ll give you one.” “No, no,” replied the Judge, “the felonious abstraction of the vegetable is part of the cure. Kindly look the other way!” So the Judge stole the potato and he assured me that he never suffered from rheumatism. PETER SIMPLE. . AN “OLD CONTEMPTIBLE’S” OPINION Sir,— Mr. J. T. Cusley’s “figures” on the amounts the different nations spent to be prepared for war are very interesting. I agree that England*'was prepared to a certain extent for the late war. It wrould have been foolish to have declared war if we had not been so, but I w’ould like to know whether we would have been better prepared it all the men Lord Kitchener had to rush together and train had alreadv had the experience of soldiering. I think we would have been better off «^ n d I also think the only wav to try and keep war away is to be absolutely prepared for it. ONE OF THE OLD COXTEUPTIBLES. “MAKE IT NATIONAL” Sir,— or -V h ° r S? e ; da Ff to question the sanitv ot the Naval authorities on the gas Mr im n e rr qUest ' on ' and "°uld challenge If th? ii lm ° re ?° prove ‘he opposite, what net 1 ma jlts issued are sound, what need is there to test them? If

they are defective, does the department expect human beings to risk their lives in a. costly and unnecessaxy experiment? The authorities could use dogs instead of men in showing Just how effective (or otherwise) the gas masks were, were there not an in‘ stitute like the S.P.C.A. to voice a protest. There is. unfortunately. no similar association to protect Territorials. It the troops are to be trained in the donning and use of the apparalufi. Why not make it an open-air exercise? Cases in the next war, we are told, an to be without smell or colour, and 90 a “masquerade" in Victoria Park of the Domain would be much more like the real thing than the cooping of men up a concrete box. Furthermore. there would be room for the whole of Auckland's population to join in. and ‘ th° exercise would become a. truly ‘33; tional movement." “Gas Knowledge tells us that the civilians at Armandtieres did just what I sugs’BSl- ,A.“ we all know that “Fifty Million Frenchmen can't be “Tong-n ANOTHER OPTIMIST-