TOWARD NEW WORLD

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21222, 19 September 1940, Page 9

TOWARD NEW WORLD

(To the Editor) Sir,—ln your issue of September 11. under the above caption, “Raglanite” asks several questions of the writer. Your correspondent quotes cases of slum people turning their model new homes into slums and evacuee children refusing to sleep between clean white sheets in the country “because that was what they put dead people in.” What an indictment! This is the 20th century, and to think that millions in the big cities of the Old Country are reared in the environment described by “Raglanite” is little to boast of. No one denies that Mr Goodfellow pioneered the home separator. The writer has vivid memories of the attempts that were made to prevent him being heard in the creamery districts. Despite the progress made since those days the farmers are little better off financially, as under the existing order, progress means an equal advance in “debt.” The farming industry today faces a serious crisis through lack of markets due to inadequate purchasing power. Mr Goodfellow suggests that costs must be reduced and that our produce must sell in competition with the world, and the resultant price is what the farmers must accept. Millions can be created out of the ink pot for war purposes, and so far as this Dominion is concerned we will emerge from the war better equipped industrially than ever before in our history. Mr Goodfellow assumes that there is to be a reduction in living standards after the war, because money cannot be created for peaceful purposes. Is the writer not correct in saying that if a contraction of credit is permitted the struggle will have been in vain? It has to be remembered that a large percentage of our young people are engaged in war work, and those in the forces have to be restored to civilian life under decent conditions. An expansion of credit will be necessary rather than the reverse. Workers of all classes have a direct interest in seeing that the farmers’ emoluments are based on New Zealand costs of production rather than on “London parity.” It is hardly necessary to remind them that their wages were hammered down in 1930 on the pretence of helping the farmers. There is a distinct danger of the same thing happening again, 'particularly with Mr Nash as Minister of Finance.—-I am, etc.. R. G. YOUNG, Gordonton. September 17.