The Feilding Star, Oroua & Kiwitea Counties Gazette. Published Daily. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 1895. MR NATHAN'S SCHEME.

Feilding Star, Volume XVII, Issue 61, 9 September 1895, Page 2

The Feilding Star, Oroua & Kiwitea Counties Gazette. Published Daily. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 1895. MR NATHAN'S SCHEME.

Every sheep farmer and stock owner in the colony should be grateful to Mr D. J. Nathan for his efforts on their behalf, with respect to an improvement in the frozen meat trade. It is true that the Conference would not accept his scheme, but the real reason for its rejection was that part of it which proposed to put a tax en sheep With the low prices which have been obtainable for wool during the seasons of the last few years, lock owners were not likely to accept a proposal which savored so strongly of increased taxation. They were apparently unable to recognise that what appeared on the surface like another fiscal burden would be really an investment of their own money for their own benefit. Mr Nathan is reported to have said at the Conference that the gtoskownere wanted an improvement in trade but would not pgy for it. No doubt this is epigrammatic, but like most epigrams it wont bear analysis The stockowners have had in the past, have now, and will for all time have j to find the capital for land, fences, etook, and labor, before they get any

return for their labors. On the other hand the capitalists who are in a position to contribute towards the erection of factories, the building of ships, orjother meansjof developingcommerce, obtain in most cases interest on their money from the first moment of investment. The flockowner does his part in raising the staple articles of export, and the capitalist his by providing the means of conveyance. When the frozen meat factories were projected on this coast, we warned sheepfarmers of the risk they ran by investing money in them which they could more profitably employ in purchasing or breeding better classes of sheep and cattle, in sub dividing their land by fences, and in other ways making themselves better able to supply the factories. Since that time we have had no reason to alter our opinions, which eubsequent events haye amply justified. We are quite aware that Mr Nathan proposed his scheme should be entirely co-operative and in no way commercial or speculative and in so doing he was wise. Although Mr Nathan was only defeated by negative resolutions, yet he has the satisfaction of knowing that by his efforts alone was the conference held.