PRECEPT AND EXAMPLE.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 May 1918, Page 6

PRECEPT AND EXAMPLE.

To the Editor. Sir, —On a letter I received to-day from Wellington the postage stamp was cancelled by the date stamp and the legend "Food means victory. Waste of food means defeat.' Of course, other people get their Wellington letters marked in the same way, I hope they will read that very wise precept of the Postmas-ter-General. Those words mugt have Bome meaning in the mind of Sir Joseph Ward, or he would not allow them to be so prominently used. It is, however, just his theory; and I am inclined to think his practice contradicts his theory.. This is what leads me to that opinion. There was a great Anzac dinner in Wellington on the 25th. Mr Massey was there, and Sir Joseph Ward, to give the usual—or perhaps extraordinary after dinner speeches, and it may be that they intended to enlarge on the wisdom of the letter stamp advice, as above. However, this is how "The Sun" (Christchurch) describes the "spree." "Feeling among returned soldiers mas high regarding the break-up of the Anzac dinner last night, when the proceedings were frankly discreditable. Mr Massey and Sir Joseph Ward had j been invited to speak, but could scarcely make their voices heard above the uproar. In spite of the efforts of the Returned Soldiers' Association to keep order, the proceedings finally closed in noisy disorder, with the toast list half completed. The trouble originated with men who had celebrated freely before coming to the dinner. Then, of course, at the dinner they had some more of that enemy that had already stolen away their better judgment. * Food was wasted to make that intoxicating drink, and strength was wasted in and by those who drank it. Yet the Government say, "don't waste," and then sets but to celebrate a glorious, yet sad, day by sitting down at what was not a simple meal, but at a feast where the greatest , waster of all, alcoholic drink, was proj vided, and its effect all too evident. Per'thaps the Government mean what they say, but they lack the pluck to lay aside , their own drinking and to lead the people that way. Is there a man in the Government from the Governor downwards who is consistent enough with this cheap advice to give up the drink? 1 believe there is one member of the Gabinet who is an abstainer, but he •tands alone. The rest remind me of those folks who go to church on Sundays and make very pious pretentions of what they ought to be and to do, "as well for the body as the soul," and . then go out and forget to put these

commendable utterances into practice. I like their preaching, hut I do not like their example. If Mr Massey and Sir Joseph will only keep awake to what may be seen and heard in Canada, as they pass through, of the better way the Canadians have ot dealing with the drink they may return with some'nobler plan for stopping waste of food than merely stamping the letters. They ought to know even now that the greatest wasters are the brewers. I wonder what Myers, Speight, Manning and the rest think when they read "Waste ot food means defeat!"—l am, etc., GEO. H. MAUNDER.