PUBLIC OPINION

Waikato Times, Volume 128, Issue 21370, 14 March 1941, Page 7

PUBLIC OPINION

As expressed by correspondents whose letters are welcome, but for whoso views we have no responsibility. Correspondents are requested to write in ink. It i 9 essential that anonymous writers enclose their proper names a? a guarantee of good faith. Unless this rule is complied with, their letters will not appear.

MASTERS AND SERVANTS

(To the Editor) Sir, —Many virtues lose their value when misapplied or abused. We hear much of the “old school tie” tradition and shis is one factor that has been abused to the detriment of comradeship and discipline. A number of everyday things can be cited as being good servants but bad masters. Water is essential to life, but in flood can destroy life and property; fire is good for warmth and cooking, but a conflagration, as seen in London, is a great destroyer; a “J” engine controlled on the railroad is most useful for travel, but when driven on a bend and into hills is a weapon of destruction. Trades unions are good associations for the benefit of workers against unscrupulous employers, but transfer the use of unionism to politics and the trade union becomes a tyranny. Finance in its original state as a token of exchange of goods is necessary for our well-being and most convenient, but in the hands of the moneylender” it becomes an enslaver of peoples and nations with disastrous results.

Practically all our troubles today are caused by wrong valuations, and if we continue as hitherto we shall sink deeper in the mire.—l am, etc., ASSAYER. Hamilton, March 13.

LABOUR TROUBLES

(To the Editor) Sir,—ln answer to “Retired Civil Servant,” I say he misquotes my original letter by omitting the first paragraph of my query. The real question was the basis of the letter on continued troubles in the industrial market. The subsequent comments are of secondary consideration. “R.C.S.” takes the secondary issues and forgets the main issue. Looking at the facts, the query about knowing that there is a war on is not so senseless a question as the correspondent assumes. In support of the attitude of mine, we have 1600 men on strike in Wellington today, and there is a war on. “R.C.S.” implies that I and my friends are hampering the war effort. If we desire to stop these troubles by suggesting military measures, then the reasoning of “R.C.S.’- is at fault. It will be interesting to see what action the Government will take over the “noble” 1600. It is they, and their supporters, who are obstructing the war effort in this country. After all, it is only the chickens coming home to roost. We have molly-coddled and spoonfed these unionists too much in recent years, and we see the tyranny of so-called democratic rule, by Trades Hall. The Horotiu freezing workers may treat this debate with contempt, but what of the lazy ones elsewhere, and the strikers? I may add that there is no political propaganda in my section of the argument. I have already made that position clear. Referring to Australia, the reference was to leakage of information. By the way, what has become of that Commission? So far as Auckland waterside work is concerned, it is not a question of equipment, but a go-slow policy on foot, which was observed on the wharf in January last. As to profiteers, if any, I am quite willing to attack them as I attack the workers when they fail in their duty. I therefore have no need to retract anything that I have said. As a great statesman said, “What I have said, I have said; I withdraw nothing.”—l am, etc., KING HENRY V. Hamilton, March 11.

MAJORITY SHOULD RULE

(To the Editor) Sir, —I was very interested in the letter of your correspondent “Patient” regarding medical benefits in today’s Times. I can appreciate his difficulty in taking sides in this dispute. But it seems to me that there is one aspect of this matter which many people have overlooked. We are a democracy, or at least that is what we are supposed to be at war for, to defend the democratic system of government. Now, if democracy means anything it means that “the majority have the right to rule but the minority have the right to be heard,” and also that in a democracy a Government should rule according to the principle of “the greatest good for the greatest number.” Last election the Government pul the Social Security scheme before the people, explained it fully, and invited its acceptance or rejection at. the ballot box. The minority exercised their right to be heard, and I distinctly remember protests signed by the members of the medical profession in Hamilton appearing in your columns at that time. The majority voted for the scheme by returning the Government which had sponsored it. The majority must rule. By what right has a small vested interest, the medical profession, to stand in the way of the will of the majority? Is not such an attitude of non-co-operation definitely anti-social? Should not the State deal with these non-co-opera-tors as it would deal with any othei anti-social faction in the community? Then again consider the matte** from another angle. It cannot be much more than 60 years ago that the State introduced free compulsory education. Doubtless there was a protest from the teachers of those days. Yet what has been the result? The private schools in the Dominion are today an inconsiderable minority. The State sees. to the training and efficiency of its teachers. If the great majority of those charged with the training of the human mind are content to work as members of a State department, catering for “the greatest good for the greatest number.” why should not those charged with the care of the human body be put in the same category? Many of us are reluctant to approach cur family doctors with the medical benefits card because we

fear the embarrassment of a refusal When one has confidence in a particular doctor on medical grounds, one hesitates to break with him over a political matter and hawk one’s patronage all over the town. Cannot the doctors be made to see that in taking up the attitude they do they are definitely anti-social and unfair to put their own selfish interests against tne will of the majoriy as expressed at the polls? I am IMPATIENT. Hamilton, March 11.