POLITICAL CHANGES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 November 1938, Page 4

POLITICAL CHANGES

(To the Editor.) Sir, —While any man or woman is perfectly entitled to his or her own political opinions and is usually respected for them, those to which the Wellington architect, Mr F. de J. Clere, recently gave utterance have aroused nothing but derision among people who have to work for their living. Mr de J. Clere has stated that Australia and Britain have set disastrous examples under Labour rule and that New Zealand has decided to follow along the lines upon which they were wrecked, but in my opinion my generation will live to see the complete establishment of Labour government in the greater part of the Eng-lish-speaking world. It is sufficient commentary on Mr Clere’s opinions to sav that at the time when he was a young man in the Old country, farmers were still employing boys of fourteen or fifteen years of age as “birdstarvers.” The function of these boys, who were remunerated at the staggering rate of one shilling per week, was to trudge round the fields from dawn till dark, rattling a tin full of stones in order to scare the rooks away from young crops. New Zealand at any rate has advanced since those days, but if opinions count for. anything, then Mr Clere still dwells in tne past.—Yours, etc., LUMINARE.