Citizens Say—

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 866, 9 January 1930, Page 8

Citizens Say —

(To the Editor.)

ROAD COURTESY Sir, — I have read a letter in last night s paper with the above heading, which I cannot pass by without giving my experience, which differs very much from the writer’s. On New Year’s Day we left for a trip from Rotorua to Arapuni, and on the Mamaku Road, when passing a service-car, we developed a bad skid and landed in deep mud on the side of the road from which it seemed impossible to get out. No less than eight cars out of nine that came along stopped to give us assistance and stayed with us for a full hour, until we were eventually towed out by the only car with a tow rope aboard. I cannot speak too highly of the assistance given, especially as most of the helpers got both muddy and wet, besides losing their time. Also, I might mention that when changing a tyre owing to a puncture, most of the cars that passed asked if we needed assistance. E. D. ASHTON. Eemuera. APPORTIONING THE BLAME Sir, — Most of your readers must feel a certain amount of sympathy for the dismissed telegraphists, but a dispassionate view of the case seems to me to justify the disciplinary action of the heads of the department. Let any large employer ask himself what he would do if he found that an employee was in constant communication with bookmakers, placing bets over the office ’phone in the firm’s time? How can any worker do justice to himself, his job, and his employer if his mind is always occupied with the problem of which useless quadruped can gallop fastest on a given day ? Mr. Thorpe’s plea in Tuesday’s Sun leaves me cold. He has been working for the Government for over five years, and the department assesses his worth at less than £4 a week. One is tempted to suggest that if some of these men who devote so much time and thought to the utterly impossible task of separating a bookmaker from his money were to concentrate as closely on their jobs their advance-

ment in the public service would be much more rapid, and the community which is heavily taxed to support a privileged class of Government officials would have less cause of complaint at the quality of the service rendered. One cannot ignore the fact, however, that the secretary of the department and the Minister in charge ought also to be in the dock for disciplinary treatment. Betting with bookmakers is an offence against the law, punishable by fine or imprisonment, or both. If Mr. McNamara and the Postmaster-General did not provide the facilities, their unfortunate employees who are victims of the betting mania would have few opportunities of gratifying the propensity in working hours. The chief thing to be said in mitigation of the offence committed by the telegraph officers is that their employer not only connives at breaches of the law, but seeks revenue by hiring telephones and transmitting telegrams to parasites engaged in an unlawful business. Yet I have not heard it suggested that the secretary and the P.M.G. should get the sack. To my thinking they are equally culpable. EMPLOYER. “SELL AUSTRALIA” Sir,— What a perfectly brilliant idea about selling Australia to pay England’s war debt to America! One wonders which was the greater genius, the Sydney man who propounded the scheme, or the “Yorkshire Observer,” which fell for it to the tune of a three-decker headline? Everyone will agree with the man from Sydney that Australia “never was, and is not now fit to govern herself . . So much in passing. A fundamental and a vital point which seems to have escaped both the man from Sydney and the “Yorkshire Post” is that Australia is not England's to sell. Great Britain no more owns Australia than Australia New Zealand. Every schoolboy knows that each and all the Dominions now have complete independence, being bound to England by the ties of sentiment and racial kinship alone. Evidently the man from Sydney, who probably hails from Tootlealong or some other backwater, is under the impression that his country is still a Crown Colony. Any-

way, even supposing England had the right to sell, th€> man from Sydney is assuming a lot in supposing America was willing to buy. I’m not so sure about that. Uncle Sam is doubtless too keen a business head to take over a concern whose directors are continually scrapping among themselves and whose employees represent democracy run wild. No, sir, the man from Sydney should have suggested other buyers, shall we say Japan or China, or even Italy, which last has its own method of taming “the howling mol*/* GENTLEMAN IN A FLUSTER, ,