PUBLIC OPINION

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21188, 10 August 1940, Page 9

PUBLIC OPINION

As expressed by correspondents whose letters are welcome, but for whose views we have no responsibility. Correspondents are requested to write i:i 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 not appear.

NATIONAL PARTY (To the Editor) Sir, —I note that my old friend Mr J. Moody is again rushing into print, and, as usual, orating in vacuo, that is, in an environment in which facts and figures do not exist. He snorts at the statements made by Mr Gordon, who has been appointed Dominion president of the National Party, and unloads a heavy burden of statements for which he offers absolutely no proof whatever, and which fall to pieces under analysis. I envy Mr Moody; he lives in such a beautiful world of “make believe,” and is so happy m his delusions. —I am, etc.. A. WARBURTON. Ngaruawahia, August 8.

FARM LORRIES AND PETROL (To the Editor) Sir,—The farm lorry carries my fat sheep to the Hamilton sale (21 miles). I am in charge of my sheep and lorry myself. My sheep don’t make the required price so I put them on the lorry and bring them home. If a carrier is called in he comes a distance to get my sheep, takes them to the sale yard and goes home. If the sheep are not sold and I stay at home to save benzine I may get a letter, or a phone message, - or I may not. My sheep are starving in the yards, or if I get word in time I ring the carrier to go back the 21 miles and bring my sheep home. I pay one shilling and one farthing a head at present carriers’ rate. The i cost of carriage is two shillings and a halfpenny. My sheep are knocked back in condition 2s a head, a total of 4s id lost a head on my sheep. I would cover 42 miles of road; the carrier to return my sheep would cover 96 miles of road, and to be businesslike and avoid trouble or loss I go to the sale in my car, which means over two gallons more of benzine.

We are told that the carriers are going to form a merger and we farmers are to lay our lorries up. At present when the private carrier takes a load of fertiliser to the farm he puts it in the farmer’s shed, or he need not expect to come again. The merger has already decided, I am told, that they bring it to the farm

gate, not across the paddock on a wet day, thank you. We must be at the gate with a large tarpaulin, or build a shed by the front gate and bring the manure away with the horse and sledge when putting the cream out, etc.—l am, etc., FARM ECONOMY. Pirongia, August 8.

COMPARISON OF WAGES (To the Editor) Sir,—l notice in today’s paper an address by Mr Samuel Barry about conditions in India, that about 226,000,000 of people out of 315,000,000 got their living from the soil and that the average earnings of millions of them was less than twopence a day. I would like to compare that with the amount received by farm workers in this country—from £2 to £3 a week and found —and which they the workers consider is not enough. , I consider those New Zealand farm workers are when they expect so much more than their fellow subjects in India. My stock of vituperative epithets is very limited so I cannot express my real feelings. 1 will have to study the speeches of some of our leading “statesmen” to get properly qualified. I was saving up my money so as to be able to buy a farm in New Zealand, but now I think I will endeavour to get enough to buy one in India, where I could get a man to work for me for a year for what I would have to pay one in New Zealand to work for me for a week.

I recently reckoned that I had nearly enough to buy two acres of land, but the Commissioner of Taxes billed me for taxes for imaginary income. I explained that he had already got all my income in indirect taxes such as benzine, sales tax, rates and insurance, and that I was really living on the depreciation of three per cent on a couple of shacks I own which cost me over £2500, and the local rates which have decreased under Mr Fow’s scheme of reduction of rates from £l2 odd a few years back to over £ls now. I had to pay the commissioner’s demand and now I have only the price of one acre, so that the prospect of that farm looms as brilliantly in the distance as Mr Fow’s reduction of rates. In all probability I will not have to pay the high rate of wages demanded in New Zealand after all.—l am, etc.,

W. B. McMANUS, Matamata, August 8.