THE NECESSITY FOR ECONOMY AND ORGNAISATION.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 October 1915, Page 7

THE NECESSITY FOR ECONOMY AND ORGNAISATION.

To the Editor. Sir, —You can hardly open a newspaper nowadays without seeing that some statesman in England is urging the necessity of economy in public and private expenditude. It is time that people should learn the absolute necessity for bringing their personal expenses to the lowest possible point and either giving or lending the money saved to the Government to help pay for the war. I see it stated that there are at present six ships loading at New York for New Zealand. These ships will bring many things which we could very well do without. Every shipload of goods brought here from America accentuates the difficulty our financiers in England are having over the exchange problem, which is a much more serious matter than is generally supposed, and the purchase by us of material from America tends to increase the price of many things required for the war. Our purchases from America should be strictly limited to things which are absolutely essential for manufacturing or business purposes or which it is impossible for us to do without, All kinds of expense pleasures should be put a stop to. There are a large number of people who earn their living by the pleasures of, the people, and they would no doubt be thrown out of their usual employment. If we were properly organised industrially there would be no necessity for them to starve. Suitable work would be found for them in other directions. If there is one tiling this war has brought out more than another it is the failure of individualism. We muddle along under an individualistic system in normal times, but when a time of trouble comes along the worthlessness of the system becomes apparent. If the war lasts another two or three years, as it well may, we shall find ourselves living under some form of socialism. What has happened in the Old Country during the last few months shows this most plainly. At present, beyond sending our men to the war, we are doing little or nothing to help. What we givo with one hand we are taking back twofold with the other, as the banking returns reveal. If we are to give effectual help to the Empire in an industrial way in this great crisis we must have, national industrial organisation, and every man and woman of us must be put to some work wnteli wil! be of assistance to the Empire in this hour of need.—l am, etc., ■ S. B. HOWLETT. Hawera, October 17, \ BINOCULARS FOR TROOPS, AND OTHER MATTERS: To the Editor. Sir,—Kindly allow me to suggest through the medium of your valuable paper to parents of boys at the front; especially the mothers, who alone know what it cost them in labor and suffering to put them there, the necessity of providing their boys with a certain measure of insurance in the shape of field glasses. I was particularly struck when residing in Germany to see troops on the march so plentifully supplied with glasses, and a writer in a Wellington contemporary last week made out an overwhelming case in favor of them, showing that the value of the men lost by snipers that could not be seen without binoculars, if capitalised, amounted to £416,000. 1 got a pair of Dollond's for my son-In-| law, Who went with the Rifle Brigade, and I want another pair for my son, but as the British Government has commandeered the whole output of this factory, it will be difficult to get Dollond's, but I want to point out that these Dollond's are the most marvellous glasses in a bad light, just when .glasses are lifesavers. Coming now to the badness of things, your editorials in Friday's News on "More- information wanted" and "Enemy resources" are distinctly a forward move. We are kept quite as much in the dark as the Germans are about their losses, and there wouldn't be many joy-bells ringing if we saw what was going on. In fact, if we could see what is before our men in Gallipoli, we might try to get it into our heads that we are at war, but at present, what with racing, golfing and sport of all kinds going at top, war is the last thing thought of.- Collier's has an illuminative article on German ability to keep going for four years, and as the number of boys coming forward each year is largely in excess of' those killed (the only-child fad not having become fashionable in Germany), it is absurd to say they will be short-handed or their armies weakened, for' wars have always been fought in large part by boys. I trust you will not again have to report any useless charges ala Balaclava. The French commander-in-chief said of the first one: "It is magnificent, but it is not war," and we can only say the same of tiie one reported last week as "a second Balaclava." Sending troops without artillery to capture machine-guns is only done by orders from officers whose brains have suddenly collapsed in the firing (the Gordon Highlanders had 450 men wiped out in five minutes through this form of madness). It may interest the friends of the troops who went away last week, and they were the grandest lot of men I have ever seen, to know that I was down at the Maunganui (troopship) between 10.30 and 11 p.m., and saw them embarking after four hours' leave, and it was a real pleasure to see the fine fellows rolling up as regular as machines. I only saw one man drunk, and he must have been a man, for it took seven men to get him along. Perhaps, like "Ginger Mick" in the Bulletin, he could drink and deal out stoush, but he was worth a squad of men in the firing line, and if some of them do get a drop now and again, as a .friend of mine said. '"Cod he with them; they deserve it," and they'll fight all the better, —I am, etc., W. E. WRIGHT. Rahotu, October 17. IP.S.—Since writing above I have just seen a letter from Lieutenant Oakey to his sister in Christclairch, dated July 22. in whicli he says: "There is much sickness amongst tlie troops , . but the tiling that saves us is the nightly issue of rum. Everybody gels it, and lam certain it is the meaii9 of keeping men out of hospital." Do the temperance people ever think that since vodka was shut off the Russians have been driven from pillar to post?