Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star SATURDAY, OCTOBER. 16, 1920. THE WEEK.

Hokitika Guardian, 16 October 1920, Page 2

Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star SATURDAY, OCTOBER. 16, 1920. THE WEEK.

“Well done; Welcome homo,” was a very appropriate address to the Prince of Wales on his return to “England, home and beauty” this week. Our future King had just completed a most , momentous visit, a visit which must have helped very greatly to enlarge his mind and outlook. During the war period lie learned much about the coloni possessions, no doubt, but the visit just completed brought him in touch witli the people as a whole, and there was no doubt the intimacy was a mutual pleasure. The Prince spent seven exceedingly stremious months. He often overworked himself during tho tou;r in his unsparing desire to meet as many people as possible. Incidentally, lie had a narrow escape from death in Australia, bo that tho mission was not without its perils. We believe that his Royal Highness has returned rvith a genuine appreciation of all that lie (has seen and of the importance of the tour. The probable results of this unique voyage cannot be appraised categorically, but they will, no doubt, be of immense value to the Empire, and through the Empire to the civilised world. The contact between the Prince and thp peoples of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other more or less Vemoto parts of the 'Empire upon which the sun never sets must have enlarged the general affection for the Royal Family and increased the spirit of unity. Summing up tho visit as it affects the public mind, an exchange •- puts it well when "it remarks that by the tour our loyalty has certainly been fortified, and our confidence strengthened by the personal touch given to ab- ' stract ideals by the great tou.T just brought to a close amidst the plaudits of millions of our kin in England. ;

The greatly increased volume of imports to New Zealand and Australia is having its effect on banking operations. [Last Thursday week, the New Zealand banks raised the ehargig" for cabled remittances on London from 1 per cent to

li per cent, and a day or two latex it was stated that remittances of this kind were not being accepted by the hanks for immediate payment, but only on sixty days’ sight. The recent cablegram from London stating that Aus-

tralian banks there will not now negotiate drafts against shipments, except for their own customers, is an indication that the position in regard to Australasian trade is more acute

imd that consequently the demand on the cash resources of the banks has been more severe.. Another aspect of the matter which is said to he i< the banks to exercise great caution ■ntinir advances against goods imported is the extent, to which orders for manufactured goods on America and many cases the exporting firm refuses Great Britain are being cancelled. In ( many cases the exporting firm refuses {o recognise cancellation, the importer refuses delivery, and the hank is left to realise on the goods which in most instances have been valued on an inflated basis. So far as \’»w Zealand is concerned, says a. financial writer in the daily press, there are increasingly insistent rumours that a further increase in the bank rate is imminent, and it is stated that the hanks are refusing all new business involving the granting of overdrafts. All of which suggests that a. financial stringency is

likely to rear its head at HO distant date.

Tiik Governemnt, we fancy, are learning that sticking 50 per c e nt on to tho cost of an article to tho public does not necessarily mean the receipt of 50 j per cent, more revenue from that article—that it may, indeed induce a lower return than was produced by the lower price. The impression that this is so as regards the recent advance in telegraph rates is held fairly widely among business’ wen and others, and was expressed at a meeting of the Council of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce on Monday, by Mr J. T. Martin. Remarking that the majority of business firms were doing all they could to reduce their telegraph charges, he said that his firm alone was saving 30 per cent., and it was not at all likely that the Government would secure anything like the increased revenue it anticipated.! He further expressed the opinion that it would pay the Department to encourage the use of tho wires. As a matter of fact, internal evidence presents itself to those who have much to do with telegrams suggesting that neither the wires nor the staff are engaged at anything like full capacity. It could hardly he otherwise; people who formerly transacted a good deal of business by telegraph are now whenever possible, using the post instead. The policy of increasing the cost of means of communication is always to be deprecated because, for one thing it is anti-social. It is oply made justifiable by a peremptory necessity for larger revenue, and in this cose we ! doubt very much whether this will be ' secured.

It was a happy thought which prompted an invitation being sent to Sir Keith Smith to visit Westland. He is a Into of the air who will go down into history. His feat of flying from England to Australia is one of the marvels of the age though it is doubtful if the mind quite grasps the great feat in such a proportion. We notice Sir Keith suggests an Australian-New Zealand flight and at Christchurch this week he made a vivid appeal to the imagination of New Zealanders when he spoke of the possibility of a flight across the Tasman Sea, from Sydney to New Zealand, in nine hours. Given the right, type of machine and favourable weather, the trip, according to Sir Keith, who has had a i|nique experience in long-distance pioneering, would not present any insuperable difficj'ilties. Now. that the Atlantic has been crossed and the journey from London to Sydney accomplished, a flight between Australia and New Zealand is practically the only one needed to demonstrate the possibility of linking the Empire together by aerial transport. To Australians belongs the honour of the first flight from Britain to their own continent, and it is to he hoped that New Zealanders will he the first to fly the Tasman Sea. Sir Keith Ross’s hint to tho sporting fraternity in the matter of providing a prize should not be disregarded. As our distinguished visitor remarked, such a. flight would be of tremendous nssistWnce to the cause of flying in this country. If the invitation to visit Westland is accepted no doubt an opportunity will present itself of enquiring his personal opinion in regard to suitable landing places on this coast for the cross Tasman Sea flight.

Naturally the butter price is a subject for prolific discussion and the pros and cons are being ventilated with considerable force in some quarters. The “Lyttelton Times” has been strongly opposing a free market for butter, because of the action of those connected with the industry in the past. It says that the dairying community has disqualified itself from claiming a. right to enjoy tho “parity of the world’s markets” for the sale of its product in this country by using its influence to deny the timber industry an exactly similar privilege. In the interests, of the dairy farmer, prices of white pine are fixed and export restricted. Not only this, but the daifly industry in this country is one which owes its creation, its present existence and its unparalleled prosperity, to heavy State subsidies, provided out of the pockets of the whole of the people over a long period of years. The new price of butter, if

the Finance Minister's estimate is to be accepted, means an impost of something over £1,200,000 per annum. This impost is being made as the direct result of a war in which' one hundred thousand New Zealanders fought to protect the daily farmer from the Hun. The principle that the dairy farmer is entitled to take the fullest advantage of the prices ruling on tho other side '■of the world is one wh’ich involves a number of corollaries. If the producer has a divine right to take advantage of the world’s markets to the detriment of the local consumer, how can the consumer be logically debarred from a similar advantage?’ To give him that privilege we should have to close the Customs House as a first step. So long as New Zealand industries are protected against the competition of the world’s markets by a tariff yielding, at present, something like' £8,000,000 per annum, the consumer is debarred from taking advantage of the prices ruling in other countries.

Having opened up the economic aspect on the foregoing lines, our contemporary, proceeds to discuss the subsidy question, and says that so far as that, is concerned it has yet to hear a sound argument in favour of this extremely pernicious and objectionable subterfuge, The subsidy comes out of the Consolidated Fund, provided by Customs duties among other sources. Among the Customs duties is a tax on tea which involves, for every £IOO collected, a charge on the consumer of £l3O. 'l’lie consumer is paying £133 on tea to provide £IOO for the Consolidated Fund, and that £IOO goes to the butter producer to save the consumer £IOO on lmttcr. The process is as silly at is is complicated,, and we heartily endorse the statement of the Minister of Agriculture, made a month ago, “‘that the practice of giving subsidies is only make-believe.” Unfortunately it is a very costly and vicious makebelieve. Mr Massey has endeavoured to forestall criticism to which ho would find it impossible to reply, by promising a new and wonderful tax which will fall op very few people, and on people who will be unable to “pass it on.” Passing over the dubious morality of a proposal to subsidise dairy farmers out. of the pockets of “a few

people,” it is pertinent to remind Mr Massey that lie has already laid it down as an axiom that no matter how or on whom a tax is levied, it is paid eventiui|lly by “the rank and file of the people.” It will be interesting to see how he proposos to disprove the principle which he himself has so emphatically enunciated.