Citizens Say

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 697, 24 June 1929, Page 8

Citizens Say

(To the Editor.)

“ALL QUIET”? NO! Sir, Tli© prohibition of literature is an insult to citizenship because it assumes that men and women of adult age and experience are not fit to be trusted to choose wisely and well, and because such adults are considered children to be sheltered from the winds of thought that blow from the east and west, north and south. Unless literature is free the mind is enslaved. There can hardly be named one book prohibited but which subsequently lias not been demonstrated to be great. The banning from our public library of “All Quiet on the Western Front” suggests how appropriately the following words, “The narrowness and provincialism of a remote colonial city,” from a clever New Zealand girl’s diary—that of Katherine Mansfield—• could be applied to Auckland. What we sadly need is an anti-official organisation: something that will make it quite plain that the public does not exist for the benefit of officials that swarm all over the Dominion. S.G. A BANNED BOOK The chief librarian has taken it upon himself to ban Remarque's great book ' All Quiet on the Western Front.” It is precisely this sort of thing that makes overseas folk chuckle. Quaint provincialism. That's what I cull it. Surely the time has arrived when we may choose, what we shall read.' The wise librarian is the one who stocks his shelves with the most modern thought. The Decameron, the Hep. tameron, Rabelais, The Golden Asse, the Satyricon . . . all these would come under the Auckland Library’s ban and yet they are works of art that are deservedly ranked high bv literary men and women. All this talk of what we should permit people to read Is balderdash; they will read what thev want to read, somehow or other. Those who seek pornography will find It In any case: those who seek art and realism should not be denied easy access to it out of consideration for the morals of a few dirty-minded citizens. TOM .TONES. SAILORS AND SYMBOLS The Emden arrives in Auckland minorrow and I take this opportunity of

asking you for the hospitality of your columns to express the hope that every possible courtesy will be extended to the visitors. Ido not mean flag-wag-ging and cheering. That, of course, would be impossible and quite out of the question. But Ido plead for civility; for the absence of hostile and insulting comment and for dignity and tolerance. So much has been written in your columns—and let me say here how much I appreciate the open attitude you take on all questions of public interest —that there is scarcely any need for me to stress the fact that these young men, for the most part, had no connection with the war and even today know nothing of it except in theory (which is their business). If we must take them as symbols, let us not symbolise them as representatives of the old Mailed Fist policy, but of the new international Peace movement. At least let us assume that they are motivated by friendship and a desire to wipe out the bitter feelings engendered by a. war which has now been over for 10 years. THE COLONEL. THE EMDEN Sir, After reading Mr. Charles Bailevs and "War Pensioner's” letters on this subject, as, also, Captain Bean's retractions of what he reported when the war was on, I can only assume that, owing- to most reprehensible and almost general propaganda, the conduct of the Germans during the war lias been cruelly misrepresented and I can quite understand that, after his experience of Christianity, as exemplified by the Allies, Genera] Ludendoxf has returned to the worship of his ancestors’ heathen gods. I fear that I must now believe that the gas as a war weapon was not introduced by the Germans but by the Allies: that Belgium was never invaded by Germans, that tlie Lusitania was torpedoed by an English submarine in order to get the United States into the war. and that Nurse Cavell shot herself. LUSITANIA. THE MURCHISON DETONATIONS Sir,— It is worthy of note that some four years ago the residents of Murchison noticed the sound of detonations amonsr tho hills. It. was a. season tor earthquakes. but none was felt locallv at that time. Some authorities offered

the strange explanation that these resulted from the rubbing of rocks in a fault; others offered the still stranger theory that there were subterranean deposits of petroleum, which one after another exploded with heat. Askec my opinion, I had no hesitation in sa>ing they arose from the escape o. vapours from a fault at times of excessive pressure. Mention of m>’ views appeared in the Murchison “Guardian.” Such sounds are ominous, but do not necessarily presag* an earthquake. They are often heard at volcanoes, sometimes near a main volcanic fault. At that time the leaning fault near Murchison permittee vapours to leak through somewhere at its lower edge. Where able to rise, that compressed vapour would continue to rise, following the course of resistance through fissures in tngradually widening zone of shatterea crust, and upon its sudden escape inw any considerable cavity or into uv atmosphere, it would make a report sometimes short and sharp, someurn prolonged into a continuous roar, that of a gun, the aperture then closing again for a time behind it. But, the fault at its lower edge not then sufficiently open to ** vapours the freedom of access nec , sary for an earthquake. Presumam. the earthquake at Arthur’s Pass i month, while leaving that part coir paratively immune, caused the faui open farther north. And w’nen. the 17th instant, the rush of expa j® vapour caused an earthquake at part, the widening of the fault quickly followed by a still more lent shock and by the opening fault or faults in other P art J ioui leading to further shocks in localities, sometimes stronger district, sometimes stronger in ~ pv And in this series of earthquakes of detonations caused by the vapours at widely different part* more marked than usual. •‘r “ \ them occurred upon land. 01 the bed of Cook Strait (where have been heard before), f- 1 * t apparently eastward of Cook , parth.Tust as the Arthur’s P&&* 50 ouake led to the Buller disa-. 'j e f t this latter has almost certain y some other locality in P 6 *"* ~r * en Tthis is the matter that call® \Ve investigation at the present t f want to know now what town trict is in the greater * fleet when the next earthquake w teR that weak spot. Seismograph 5 us very little more than ou “Amenable us to detect respecting tbr0 tr quakes when they occur. TBj no light upon the cause; tne rba help us to prognosticate “l* l for or to “determine the ha'*’’ impending earthquakes. however, a very important « y which they have not yet beeni P rea j£* obtain information such as need there aj*c other fairly 3 I reliable means. piZLJI