PUBLIC OPINION

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21197, 21 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 in ink. It is e. sential that anonymous writers enclose their proper names as a guarantee of good faith. Unless this rule is complied with, their letters will nut appear.

NURSES’ CONDITIONS

(To the Editor) Sir, —The nursing staffs of the hospitals are very short in numbers. Is this to be wondered at when such conditions as these have to be put up with? The younger nurses are working from sixty to seventy hours a week for the magnificent sum of 12s lOd after reductions are made for Social and National Security. At this rate of approximately 2d hour they are almost brought down to the level of the coolie, and yet since the Government has paid 6s per occupied bed the Waikato Hospital Board reduced the rate to the ratepayers by a sum of approximately £50,000. No doubt this is a good thing, but when one hears of the conditions and wages, does it seem so good? Surely the ratepayers would not have minded a little of this going to improve such conditions. Everyone knows the kindness one receives when in hospital, and the grand work that the nurses perform. It is a great pity that the nurses have not a union to ask at least a recompense worthy of the work they do. I would suggest that if inquiries were made the board would be, or should be, greatly surprised. Were conditions improved I think that the board would not have such difficulties in retaining a sufficient staff.—l am, etc., RATEPAYER. Cambridge, August 19.

SOCIALISM V. SYNDICALISM

(To the Editor) Sir, —The. pen of today writes history which belongs to the realms of yesterday. Apart from the fact of intrigue in high places, the second factor of importance which determined the downfall of France can be traced direct to antagonisms between the National Socialist Party of the Republic on the one hand and the great industrial syndicalist movement on the other. To appreciate this fact one must thoroughly understand the difference between political Socialism and industrial syndicalism. The Syndicalist formula is (a) from each according to his abilities to each according to his needs, and it spoke in the name of the people; (b) propaganda against all State-created monopolies; (c) the organisation of the economic forces and the dissolution of State interference or control in the economic organism; (d) individual freedom relative only to economic opportunity; (e) those engaged in industry control industry per medium of codes relative to the rule of transaction. Socialism, this modern monopolycapitalism, whereby a well-entrench-ed bureaucracy owns the State as private property, and thus dictates in the name of the Government, is merely the last term in a development. Hence as Socialism depends upon its very existence for ownership and control of the economic organism, consequently it is hostile to any federation of free communities bound together by their common economic and social interests, thus administering their affairs by mutual agreement and free contract. Hence in a given environment relative to internal conflict the French Socialist put “party needs” before national needs by betraying the Republic to Adolf Hitler, ex-tramp, frequenter of doss-houses, proven coward and perjured traitor. Today this weedy, unmoral throwback is the world’s greatest despot, plus the world’s greatest Socialist.—l am, etc., HARRY WOODRUFFE. Auckland, August 18.

WAGES, PRICES, INFLATION

(To the Editor) Sir, —In your issue of August 14, R. G. Young continues his tedious and monotonous plaint against orthodox finance, his remedy being of course debt-free money. He attacks the Welfare League, which has probably forgotten more about finance than he ever knew. Mr Young is correct in saying that “taxation goes into prices, thus reducing the value of wages,” but in his panacea of debt and interest-free money he is unable to see that Douglas Credit has exactly the same result. We have an example in the almost £30,000,000 overdraft from the Reserve Bank, and we can take the £10,000,000 of the overdraft spent on State housing as an especial example. Mr Armstrong states that the housing scheme is saddled with less than two per cent interest, but Mr Nash says that the Government is paying the bank 4 per cent. Now unthinking people, in whiph I include Douglas Creditors, are prone to imagine that the 2 or 4 per cent is the all-in cost of the £10,000,000 loan, but this is far from correct because these millions j of money have been liberated in the Dominion, thereby causing a greatly added demand for goods, and immediately the law of supply and demand operates and everything goes up in price as a direct result of inflation.

I have no hesitation in saying that the heavy overdraft from the Reserve Bank, reaching the people by | way of bank notes, is a big factor m the rise in not only living but in luxuries and other needs. Further, it has been a big factor in the destruction of the sterling funds, leading to the impoverishing of importers and considerable unemployment as the result of import control. It may well be that the millions of inflationary money from the bank is costing the people 20 or even 40 per cent. The workers in Russia are misled by the very same method, vide Sir Walter Citrine’s book, “I Search for the Truth in Russia.” Sir Walter is the acknowledged leader of the British trades unions. By'inflation the rouble in Russia has fallen from the value or purchasing power of 2s 3d to 2bd. Sir Walter says that -a Russian worker has to work four times as hard to purchase the same article as a British worker. That is what inflation does, and that is what Douglas Credit would do. Should the Douglas system be put into operation in New Zealand the ensuing debacle would more than parallel that great event

of 220 years ago—the South Sea Bubble.—l am, etc.. W. P. KENAH. Raglan, August 17.