PUBLIC OPINION

Waikato Times, Volume 124, Issue 20733, 17 February 1939, Page 9

PUBLIC OPINION

As expressed by correspondent* whose letters are welcome, but for whose ■views we have no responsibility. Correspondents are requested to write in ink. It is essential that anonymous writers enclose their proper names as a guarantee of good faith. Unless this rule is complied with, their letters will do* appear. LABOUR POLIOY (To the Editor) Sir,—Why do correspondents persist in repeating the inaccuracy that the present Government has reduced our national debt? Mr J. Moody says £2.000,000; another correspondent recently said £5,000.000; whereas Mr Nash showed an increase of £2,500,000 for 1938 over 1937 in his last Budget. Surely Mr Nash should know. As a matter of fact, the national debt has been heavily increased since the last Government actually reduced it when in office. I hope Mr Warburton will excuse my butting in.—l am, etc., AJAX. Hamilton, February 15. LOTUS ANQUBTIBUMUS (To the Editor) Sir, —T read with interest Mr Peaton's account of his experience with Lotus angustisumus. Judging by my own experience of the lotus 1 can readily believe that it would serve a useful purpose on the class of land he describes, but when he advocates sowing it on good land 1 must Join issue with him. On my coming to this district 18 years ago our land was infested with Hie lotus. As it is of little value fit stock, except in the early spring, we set to work to replace It with good trasses, hut found it a difficult plant lo get rid of. Even when the land was cropped for several years before being sown to grass the lotus came up smiling and soon got ahead of the good grasses, and gave them little chance to grow. However, with continuous top-dressing and heavy stocking the good grasses gradually got ahead of it. and we are no longer troubled with the pest.—l am. etc.. •R. JOHNSTONE. Manurewa, February 15.

NATIONAL PARTY

(To the Editor) Sir, —Your correspondent hi Monday’s issue, signing himself Mr Moody, lias contributed something to your paper which would amuse most people were it not for the serious lack of mental effort shown. The members of the National Party are not slumbering, and Mr Hamilton's request to the Prime Minister to call Parliament together was a correct one. Your correspondent states that we have no need to fear, because Mr Savage told us so. Mr Savage, however, is an inexperienced man in charge—nominally, at a huge undertaking. He say* there is no need to fear, one moment. The next moment he says that a state of emergency exists and that the position is almost as serious as a war. The next moment he denies to importers who have been ruined the right of access to the courts of Justice. He is instilling into the minds of many members of the community a serious* distrust of both his party and his intentions. Far from sleeping and leaving Mr Savage at the helm. the members of the community are keeping wide awake and watching the temporary captain, who is intoxicated with power and ills own verbosity.—l am, etc., WIDE AWAKE. Hamilton, February to.

CENTENNIAL MEMORIAL (To the Editor) Sir. —Various suggestions have been put forward for the marking of oue Centennial celebrations by the provision of facilities for the physical and mental development of the people of our land. Among the proposals placed before the Centennial committee is a suggestion by the Physical and Mental Welfare Society that a hoard of scientists doctors, hiologtsts. chemists, physiologist*, psychologist*, etc. be appointed for the purpose of constantly issuing authoritative sdenliflr truths bearing on vital current problems, in a phraseologj suitable to understanding of the ordinary man and woman. One has only to refer to the fart that our scientists have known for many years past that our health and prosperity, nur fertility and sanity, are slowly being destroyed by wasteful deforestation, soil erosion, soil exhaustion, waste of natural manuring, ignorance of sensible nutrition, etc.: that these men of science have been willing and anxious to convey their warnings and their constructive advice to the mass of the people, hut have been able to do so .in isolated units only; and that had there been an organisation in existence of Ilie nature proposed by the Physical and Menial Welfare Society the strong public opinion thus aroused would have’ forced the authorities to take both preventive and remedial art ion. In the opinion of many of the nominion's leading thinkers, the Physical and Mental Welfare Society's scheme for marking our Centennial celebration would he the most lasting and the most far-reaching that it is in the power of man to conceive in the Interests of health, fertility, sanity, prosperity and peace. After all. the real force of evolution and of progreaa lies in the common man's common development, and not in the forcible leading by some outstanding group of individuals of a race of physically fit morons.—l am. etc., A. L. CREXFELL SPENCER. * Auckland. February 13.