WAR PROFITS

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2812, 1 July 1916, Page 11

WAR PROFITS

Sir,—There have been ' several letters in your-paper re frar tax profits, butnone seem to me to iiit Iho mark, so allow mo, through your columns, to put a Chineso puzzle. Wo take 'John,- for instance, who has a bush farm, and has been for the previous three years beforo tho war milking, twenty cows and receiving a profit of, say, a year, but during this time lie has boon all the while improving, his property by draining, stumping, bushfalling, ploughing, etc. By these labours he can now carry thirty cows, and makes .£350 profit this year. -The difference-of ,£l5O a year cannot, bo called war profits. Wo tako another .case: A sheepfarmer produces wool, say, sevon bales. By doing tho samo as tho above farmer, he produces fourteen bales, and doubles his income. War profits .have not done this. Then, we take. tho clieeso producer. .Ho has had a third of his product .commandeered, by. tho (I don't know what to say), and given far bolow the market price for it.. Our cheese . companies have given freely to relief funds, etc., and the farmer, himself, also gives largely towards these relief funds, so I am afraid that if a dairy farmer was asked to, give a full balance-sheet for last year's work, in most cases it would show a deficiency. Now, Mr. Editor, if this war profit tax should cbme'into force, you would find the wool-grower showing less wool, the dairy-farmer taking it easy, milking less cows, the . wheat-grower growing less wheat, and the country going backward, for :.what would be' the use of us farmers working hardor' (as wo have to do,' for labour being so short) when we are to derive no bonefit from it? ' In my own opinion it is step in tho wrong direction—ono that encourages laziness instead of 'pushing ahead. I think .if our Finnuco Minister should look into other little' things, arid impose a duty on such as salt, ; which !s far too' cheap, and put back the duty of 2d. a lb. on, tea, at tile, same time not allowing the .'merchants to pass it on; to the storekeepers; wiio passtfa it on to the coiis'ipher. I think the profit made from these two things; too much; suoli as Gd. a lb.. on 2s„ sd.'on Is. 10d., and 4d.'oii' Is. "Sd: teas. Thanking you'. for your kind space,; and Imping some hotter pen than mine .will take up tho running,—l remain, etc., PUZZLED.