CORRESPONDENCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 February 1919, Page 7

CORRESPONDENCE.

MR TRIMBLE AND THE "GENTLE HUN." To the Editor Sir, —One can only express astonishment at the remarks made by Mr Trimble at the meeting of the Taranaki Education Board on Wednesday last, and also at the action of the board in not allowing the circular sent by the N.X. Branch of the British Empire League to be distributed to the children attending schools in the Taranaki Education district. How nice it sounds, Sir, to advocate forgetfulness and forgiveness to brutes who ravished defenceless females, destroyed homes, mutilated little children, murdered hundreds by sinking defenceless ships and then shelling the rescue boats; dropping bombs on school children, defiling places of worship with their dirty filthy ways, crucifying defenceless prisoners, bayoneting babies in their mother's arms, as well as committing hosts of hellish orgies that are too numerous to mention. Yes, Sir, how nice it sounds to hear Mr Trimble as a membqr of the T.E.B. trying to teach us to forget and forgive such nefarious villainy as the above acts show. .Do Mr Trimble and those who supported his motion forget what France and Belgium have Buffered at the hands of the Huns that they would have us in their education district who have sent of our own flesh and blood (many who will never return), do they, I ask, wish us to forget what price it has cost us, and more especially those who have suffered the most at their devilish hands? . I think if Messrs Trimble and Cp. had relations who had been treated like some of the poor unfortunates in France and Belgium were, they would not be so eager to plead the gentle Huns' cause. I was talking to a returned soldier from France to-day, a man whose word can be relied on, and he told me that he had himself seen little children with hands and cars cut off, and girls of 17 years with their breasts cut clean off. Oh, yes, Mr Trimble, we should forgive such fiends as these, should we not? The poor merciful, down-trodden, gentle Hun. Mr Trimble, on second thoughts, do you consider they are worthy of your pity and patronage in asking that we forget and forgive them? If you do, then you are not the man to mete out justice, where justice is demanded, but would have us to a certain extent condone with these wretches who should get nothing but the sternest and severest punshment that can be meted out to them.—l am, etc., TARANAKI PARENT. Inaha, 14th February. MOUNT MESSENGER. Sir, —In your issue of Saturday, 15th, there is a report of the Expansion League in which several members express themselves in favor of metalling Mount Messenger and the Coast Road generally, and thus help the development of New Plymouth. There is no doubt that this work completed would bring more and continued traffic through to New Plymouth. I happen to be in business in this mudbound solitude, and know the enormous amount of traffic that is suspended the greater part of the year. Every season I receive wires from Auckland and Wellington, besides other places, enquiring if they can .get through, and more often my answer is ''No" than "Yes." 1 have traversed the road from Awakino to New Plymouth u for the last ten years, and I am perfectly sure that the money spent every year in small contracts, carting sand, earth, ploughing and crowning, etc., would have (aid a concrete road, for, as you know, all this only lasts for the summer. It is societies like the above and the Chamber of Commerce that Bhould use their influence, in conjunction with the member, to help Mr. Jennings to have this arterial road metalled, and do away with a standing disgrace. The Minister of Public Works will be through in the course of a few days. I sincerely hope the weather continues fine for his sake, and hope it rains for the people's sake. It is wonderful what can be done on this mountain. There is one cry—''cannot get labor." There is a hole, a particularly large one (about 2 chains long), where a man and horse could have made a good wage hauling cars out this summer. There lias been only one man on this length of about five miles of a hill, and latterly no one, but 1 waß surprised to find two men working at this iiolc the other morning, filling in with scrub, i wondered why. It was not long before I met a P.W.i). gun from Wellington with our resident engineer making iiorth. I just stopped and had a think. Further, sir, there is the completion of the Valley Road, which New Plyinoutn cannot afford to lose sight of. It brings in thousands of acres of ricli pastoral land to be catered for from New Plymouth, and the position forces itself owing to shipping facilities against rail and road the other end. The old road over the Taumatamaire is now sadly neglected, owing to the fact that the deviation will become the arterial road, so the position is obvious.—l am, etc., W. J. R. AVERY. Awakino, February 16.