PILGRIMS AND POLITICS.

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20283, 27 August 1937, Page 9

PILGRIMS AND POLITICS.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —I have to thank Mr Kenah for attributing to me the remarks of the learned pilgrim of whom I have written. I trust sincerely that the pilgrim himself will be duly gratified. That •he was no figment of my imagination has been proved by his letter which appeared in your columns on August 23, and which contained still further proof of the sad mental state to which he had been reduced —a matter for which Mr Kenah, I am afraid, must assume full responsibility.

This action of Mr Kenah's in sending, a poor harmless old man out of his mind, reprehensible though it may have been, I am prepared to forgive, because I am able to discover certain signs of clear reasoning cropping up from time to time in his letters. The following Is an example: “When the world returns to sanity," says Mr Kenah, “and free trade is universal, then there will be prosperity and wars will cease.”

No doubt it will come as a shock to your readers to learn that there is a free trader In the National Party—a staunch supporter of it, too. lam intrigued by this discovery, and I consider that he has a plain duty in showing us hpw he Justifies the actions of his party (under the various names which it has found convenient to adopt from time to time) in introducing the tariff system to New Zealand. I ask him, for the sake of brevity, to confine his remarks to the reasons for the imposts on British goods. On the chance that it may prove useful to him, I mention that I once requested this same Information from a prominent member of the National Party, and he replied that it was done “to create employment in New Zealand.” In view of Mr Kenah’s statement that “here is a country simply screaming out for work to be done” i can only presume that he approves his party’s action on some other grounds. I await Mr Kenah’s reply with interest. —I am, etc.,

G. HUNTER Horsham Downs, August 24.