The Taihape Daily Times FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1916. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 23rd, 1916 QUESTIONABLE CRITICISM.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 201, 23 September 1916, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1916. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 23rd, 1916 QUESTIONABLE CRITICISM.

AND WAIMABINO ADVOCATE (With which is incorporated The Taihape Post and Waimarino News.)

Mr. P. A. MeHardy’s Anzac Art Union has again been brought into public prominence by some criticism from the Hon. G, W. Russell, of his statement of accounts lodged with the Internal Affairs Department. To under stand the whole position, a very brief mention of the chief features of this art union may be made. Mr McHardy is perhaps the most generous of patriots .New Zealand has discovered during this war time of extreme need for money; he has urged that farmers w ere not doing all they might do, and his personal generosity has stood out in very bold relief against anything given by most other New Zealanders not excluding the Hon. G. W. Russen. He got together 2,200 sheep, worth, or valued at, £2,200. He applied for and was granted permission to art union these sheep to raise the wherewithal to provide a home for returned soldiers, for the men who are coining back to us, after having gone through the hellish lighting for us and ou.r country’s existence. Without Mr .McHardy ? s efforts in this connection, the soldiers’ institution would probably have been impossible. However, Mr. McHardy gets the sheep, and he sets to work with a business enterprise and energy unsurpassable by most men. To achieve success in the huge task before bim he has to convert the

£2,200 worth of sheep into upwarcs of £IO,OOO in cash. Unlike his critic, Mr McHardy is a business man, and he readily saw that with some enterprise and the utilisation of ideas that only evolve in the minds of true business men, there was a possibility in his 2,200 sheep amounting to some seven or eight times the number of pounds sterling, and he went to work, worked in his own way, with the energy that only true patriots do work. He didn't talk and work for the right to pocket anything he never had the ability to earn; he worked for the soldiers who are now fighting for him and us; to provide some degree of comfort after enduring the life trench fighting involves. He saw the £15,000 he wanted go into the bank, then he thought that by some extraordinary effort and display of enterprise he could get enough to pay all the expens es and have the £15,000 to hand over. He put that thought into action and j was successful. The getting of in last three or four thousand was certainly more difficult to get than the I first ten, but the people admired l * pluck and patriotism, and they res- j ponded to his unique methods to | such an extent that he was able to 1 hand over for the soldiers no less than £15,326 15s lid. The total amount re- ) alised amounted to no less than £lB,836, and the achievement is littie short of a miracle when taking into account the fact how hard and how thoroughly the New Zealand, public have been importuned for patriotic purposes. ,We view Mr Russell’s criticisms with rather mixed feelings—disgust and sorrow. Here is a man giving the utmost of his ability, energy, and example with a marvellous spin:: and is told by the Minister of Internal Affairs that his expenses in converting £2,200 worth of sheep into nearly ( £19,000 were too high, and mat :;t would limit the expenditure in future like affairs. Now, we say without hesitation that the course the Minister has proposed is the one above all oti

1 ers that will ■ create crime, crawling and connivance at that which is d< testable. No greater disgust can be felt by the Minister against right out gambling than we feel, but we think in this case he has not been either fair or even courteous to Mr McHardy. A Dannevirke art union is instanced which, first of all, is no parallel case, as it came off in the hey-day ,of giving, but waiving all that, if Mr McHardy had disposed of that Dannevirke house, he would have established a record for Dannevirke as having the highest priced house in the Dominion. Instead of that house realising £7,000, it would have brought from £15,000 to £20,000. People when they take an art union ticket in a pai riotic effort to raise money for soldiers have little thought of getting any return other than the good work me:r giving renders possible. From a purely business standpoint we would like the Minister to point out the business man who would not spend £3,000 in converting £2,200 worth of merchandise into £18,836 every day of the week, aye, and every hour of the day. If Mr McHardy’s statement of accounts was of a doubtful character — but then it is disgustingly contemptible to suggest the thought in his case. Except for a long-faced people who are not the real religious of the country, but the mere sprinkling of pharisees, Mr McHardy’s effort and achievement will be admired and applauded from the North Cape to the Bluff. He has performed that which makes a humane, noble institution possible, and we trust the Minister will not step in to prevent givers to good work being! approached in the way they prefer above all others; a way they will respond to in preference to all others, and when all others completely fail. Would that this country had more of such generous-spirited inen of the P. A. McHardy type.