CORRESPONDENCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 March 1917, Page 7

CORRESPONDENCE.

THE POLITICAL GRAMAPHONE. To the Editor. Sir,—Marvellous machines, are they not, these gramaphones? "Wonderful examples of hpmau skill —the last word in science, I wish they were," etc., etc. Doubtless you have the stock phrases already set up to fit the etceteras. Please supply them. But though I admit all this of the machine itself, I cannot say I think much of its manipulator, the mim behind it, the wire-puller, so | to speak. He has no soul for song, at least that I can discover, cares little for the needs and wishes of the mere man in the street, and is therefore quite incapable of moving that remarkable organ —the human heart. His sole care is what he has put into the machine and the due trumpeting forth to a muchenduring world of its literal record; in brief, politically speaking, he is a pettifogger. And that trumpeting from the profundity of the trumpet we have heard issue incoherencies, inconsistencies, awful sounds as of dying gurglings and rattlihgs, ravings, demoniac and awful, as of an Inferno void of all 'beings save demons and politicians. Even as an editor—though I believe you are something of a philosopher—at times you you must have wished the whole business at the bottom of the sea along with Dreadnoughts, submarines, 17-incli and machine guns, gas shells and the like instruments for doing "Violence to us poor mortals, body and soul. These and the like reflections were excited in me by the report read of that notable meeting held at Eltham the other day to consider the question of military service. There, indeed, you had the political gramaphone at work in all its native ugliness and diabolical ingenuity. There were your wire-pullers in full force and fig, with the records duly and neatly arranged. Note their names and titles. Five of the precious documents were put on and duly reeled off with mechanical piecision, and when the superhuman squawk—inhuman, rather —ceased at last to stun or distract, was mortal man better, wiser, easier or more satisfied? None except the wire-pullers. And not all of them even, not ho for so long the heart and soul of the Farmers' Union —if such an infernal machine as a gramaphone can be said to be so endowed—could plaintively ask to he told what the farmers did want. Strange, when one comes to think of his too emphatically aspirated "Heah! Heah!" heard at the conclusion of every record reeled off by the F.U.'P.G. I noted only one utterance as by human vocal chords, heart and mind prompting it—that as to the need and fitness of the monthly quota this Dominion is sending to the front as reinforeemenj;. But it was lost in the drone and squawk of the machine. Of course, 1 know, "Win the war!" But are you sure the perspective is quite correct? The Huns, at any rate, lost the war when Joffre's GO,OOO picked men sallied forth from Verdun on September 0, I'ol4, and drove hack the German left wing under the Crown ifince "5 miles in 24 hours. However, be that as it may, did any one of us men on the Messed land and milking cows for a living, there present at the Eltham meeting, give vent to the real thought that was in him, or have his heart string* stirred for hearing that which had been so nasally and mechanically squawked out at us by the political gramaphone? Not one. Now, Sir; and in consequence of all this, a few of us have made up our minds that we must have a meeting of our very own in Ingle wood itself. But it shall be a real sing-song, with live human voice, with heart and mind to prompt it, which is, after all, something your gramaphone can no more produce than science can corner the

Diety. We shall bold our meetings on Saturday next. Mai eh 10, in the Parish Hall, Inglewood, at 1 p.m. We hope to produce: Item, the Income Tax Assessment, or "How dam mandarine makce squeeze njrtgin!"—as old bo'sun used to say when accounting for the condition of China; item, tiie Butter-lax Levy, with a true account of death and burial of Petition of Plight, and relegation of dear old Magna Charta to the mnmmyroom of the British Museum; item, the Military Service Board, and how a certain "gallant" captain would teach his granny how to organise and give a little female assistance in sucking eggs. How do yon take the suction. Sir? And, since some of us recall Dizzy dishing the Whigs in 186G item, the screaming farce of poor old simple Bill being dished by Artful Joe for the delectation of a set of knighted mandarins round a board covered with the Defence Act. and with the Rights of Englishmen twisted into lights for joss sticks and crackers. If you care to come, I can promise you a real live Moa meeting. What is more, also, you shall spend a delightful hour or two, and, despite age and infirmity, you °'' all live again even as the moa docs, all the way down to Egmont Village, where, alas! once across the road from the midst of life, you are in.New Plymouth, which is unblushing plagiarism. I know you shall hear free speech, may be for the last time in a Dominion bedevilled as this, You will witness straight hitting, but you shall find sound sense and right-mindedness withal. Maybe you will think us a little rough and lacking in the elegances and refined inanities of a city assemblage, but we have a courtesy, racy of the soil, native to him who tills the blessed earth,,and which Is to urban polish as the tone of tile human voice to the utterance of a gramaphoue record.—l am, etc., •ROBERT BAKEWELL. Waitul, 6/3/17, COUNTRY AND TOWN LIFE. . To the Editor. Sir,—ln reply to "A.8.C.," I think ho must admit that large portion of this 70 per cent, of workers, claimed to have gone to the war up to the first ballot, were not all townies or wharlies. Did no cowspankers, ploughmen, cheese and butter factory workers and many other workers ' connected directly with the dairymen count in this TO per cent? They are workers, and, I c!"' the very best, as they have proved • battlefield. "A.BC."" questions, there are so many farmers callei i the ballot. This is a question u i the pic-sc-nc only Fate can dcti ne, and I (lo not think the number of farmers is so much ahead of the 1 townies. One tiling I can say is that the correspondent claims that thp bulk of the townies and wliarfies have gone to the war, I have not heard of town workers doing two men's work or putting in double time for the same money. "Is it not the reverse? Town workers are asking for more money and less hours. Not so on tho farms. Most farmers are putting in ionger hours, old men are turning to, ;'nd the extra money they are saving in " " wages' bill is eaten up in taxes, as w 'ave explained. With reference to the

legislators going on tow, can "A/8.C." tell me if all those who stayed at home denied themselves so much not to even send a" delegate or asked to be remembered to the struggling gum-getters? Perhaps e.ve :■•hall some day find out why seme went and why some stayed at home "v. v,'io foots the bill, and what for. j v.NIi here to put."A.B.C." on the right track. 1 have been a town vcrker, and X know just as much as he does about the conditions under which lie is toiling. I have been a worker ever since I opened my eyes, and have been a machine, making hard casli for the other fellow, hut got tired of the game and : v.t out of it and the union, and now iwork 12, 14 or Hi hours a day, hut for myself. I have no union to tell :no to go slow. } hope to get ahead of it by honest graft, and expect a fair davjs work for a fair day's pay, and not a bonus out of anyone to help pay my butler-bill, neither do T wish to be a town worker, nor have a motor-bike to ride to work and buy Rockefeller's benzine to make me fatter, or go to the picture show every night in the week or live in a flash house in town and pay half a week's wages to have the pleasure of thinking I have as good a house as my landlord, as veil as many new new tailor-made suits as my boss, as well as my wife dolled up, like Mrs. So-and-So, who-entertains, calls, and'in at home three times a week, and hands rotind iced cake, tea and' chocolate on the lawn, shows her new hat, and asks questions about the neighbors, as well as chatting about the new piano and thoughts of a motor-car. Why, don't you see, you are only getting wages to pay for all this, and 1 agree with you that its costs money living in New Plymouth, but it is easily remedied. Come to the country dairy farm, rise at 5 a.m., rough morning, and pull (Polly out of the bog, then swear at the dog, and rouse on the poor wife and kids to get a spurt on, or you may he shut out of the factory, and then eat a good breakfast. No doctors live out here, so you Save again. 'No picture shows in the evening, so you require fewer new suits and white collars, No trams or motorbikes,, as there is nowhere to go, and no time on a dairy farm. No races, therefore no hookies to play with your few shillings, and the wife has no picture hat to flash, no entertaining to do, only feed the foiwls, milk the cows, wash the clothes (no laundry here), but her hands full of many jobs which occupy the town cup of tea hours. Take it on from "A.8.C," and I promise you that you will get to "X.Y.Z." sooner in the country, where the hard graft' is dfjiie, than in the towns where the most points are worked without the sweat.— I am, etc., X.Y.Z.