CORRESPONDENCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 25 May 1916, Page 8

CORRESPONDENCE.

CONSCRIPTION OF LABOR. (To the Editor.) Sir,—l too .have read Mr. Hunter's Speech and your leader dealing with it. Briefly summed up, it means the conscription of labor for military and industrial efficiency. So far," so good. Labor, so far, has' supplied over 80 per cent, of the members of our Expeditionary Forces voluntarily, and, no doubt, will continue to do so. Labor may lhave no objection to industrial conscription—with some additions—but the question Labor will ask with regard to its conscription for industries is: Who is going to get the profits? Mr. Hunter's speech and your article only touch part of the question. As it stands you are advocating villinage. No system of conscription will be satisfactory that does not include all the factors of industry—land, wealth, stock, buildings, machinery and labor. If the profit then made accrues to the State, well and-good; but if it is to go into private hands there will be trouble.—l am. etc,, ' A WORKER. New iPlymonth, May 23, 1916. EXPLOITATION AND CO-OPERATION To the Editor. Sir, —I have read several letters in your columns lately in regard to the price of bread, but they do not seem to have done much good, as it is still the same price. I do not know how much per ton flour has gone down, but some time during the last 12 months a tradesman asked me 3(ls for a sack, and it is how advertised in New Plymouth at 27s per sack, and bread is still _ the same price as when flour was at the hither figure. 10<1 per four pound loaf cashyid booked. Yet in several towns in New Zealand it is Sd. cash, R.l booked. If this is not exploitation, I would like to know what it is. How much longer are the public going to put up with this kind of thing? One of your correspondents suggested it would be a good time to start a municipal bakery in the town. How would it do for the farmers to start a co-operative store in connection with the factories? This is being (lone by several factories, I believe, with satisfactory result*: Living as I do in a district where there are proprietory cheese factories, as well, a's co-operative ones, T call speak from experience as to the benefits to be obtained by en-opera-tion in ;heese factories, ' Surely the same thing refers to the necessaries of life. Many a time a farmer has 'been known to take his coat oft' to the factory manager because his test is one point lower than lie thinks it should be. yet he will be exploited year after year on the necessaries of life without a murmur. Truly farmers take a-lot of understanding. The present seems to be an opportune time to move in this matter, and it is to be hoped that some one with an abler pen and a better education than T have will move in the matter, as there is plenty of time to gather information, and put something definite before the annual meeting of factory shareholders to be held in July. I remember the time when lots of farmers were loth to leave the proprietary factories and join the co-op. How many would go back to the old style? Not one, and it is equally certain that if .hey once tried the co-op stores, work"d on a good svstem, they would be a 1 I well pleased with them as they are with the factories. —I am, etc., i EXPLOITED. Okato, May 22, 1016. I