The Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 1907. FLOUR. ETC.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3767, 4 June 1907, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 1907. FLOUR. ETC.

China has a famine, India has a plague, and New Zealand has the Millers’ Trust. This precious organisation, taken with the Yankee gambling mania, has advanced flour prices by leaps and bounds until at the time ot writing the price per ton is 1 os. A fortnight ago flour was £2> 15s. So that up to the present the Millers’ Trust have made a considerable haul. A peculiarity of the milling business is that, like the brewery business, there is a good deal of “ tied house ” about it. A small baker becomes the parasite of the large miller. He crushes the parasite as soon as he desires. The miller threatens his parasite with extinction if he doesn’t put up the price of bread as ordered—and the little man obeys. Something is going to happen to the trustmongers generally some day, and it is already suggested that the remedy lies with Parliament, one minister proposing that a’Board of Experts determine what profits shall be made by the sellers of commodities. The Government has a “cheek” if it attempts to limit a man’s profit, although it

may be agreed without discussion that traders’ profits are greatly in excess of what they should be. It is, of course, the Government that is responsible for the high prices of commodities, and no saint-like utterances from Messrs McNab, Miller, and Fowlds can alter it. At the root of the high charges for everything we need is the Government’s borrowing policy. Weare taxed inordinately and it is necessary so to tax us in order to satisfy the pawn-broker. The large man pays a heavy price (comparatively) for the goods he imports, and he demands a greater profit than he has any right to expect from the next man. The next man wants his “cut” and by the time the average commodity gets to the average worker, he has paid more for it than the worker of any other part of the earth. Now, seeing that bad government is actually the cause of the high price of living, how does the Government justify its proposed action in limiting the profits of Aaron or Moses or any other large colonial merchant ? ♦P * ‘ * Aaron or the Flour Trust has, morally, as much right, to fleece the public as the Government has, and if the Government desires this country to be peopled by a few millionaires and a Government it has long ago set out to effect its purpose. The population will some day leave the Government isolated. liverything is too dear in New Zealand. The dearest thing of all is the Government that theorises vastly and at tremendous expense. In the matter of squandering money the Government sets the pace, and the private individual follows suit. The country does not feel the pinch of a sudden heavy rise in flour very much because the country is handling a very large quantity of borrowed money. *'*>• The withdrawal of money that doesn’t belong to New Zealand won’t place the lives of the people of New Zealand in the hands of the trustmongers, who would be glad enough of the chance to tighten the screw. If the Government desires to limit the profits of traders (and it is absolutely just that such profits should be limited) it should, in justice to the people, limit the profits itself makes or says it makes per its yearly balance-sheets. It is conceivable that the Government may, in the time to come, limit the profits of a draper to 10 per cent., at the same time loading the necessities of life that must come through the Customs with a 30 per cent. duty.

A peculiarity of the Government way of doing business is that, although ‘it makes tremendous profits out of the people, it does not use its profits to pursue the people’s work, but always and every time borrows to do so, taxing the people much more heavily each succeeding year and laying up a treasure of debts in New Zealand for future generations. In all branches of the Government work, barring the most necessary of all, roadraaking, the Government is spending more than ever before. The silly Tourist Department is costing a heap of money, the Plague-hunting Department is now nearly a thousand pounds more expensive than during the Seddon regime, and the Defence Scheme is just doubling the expense of the Defence Department.

The Government nevertheless, through its ministers, is telling the country that it is striving towards the goal of cheap land for the people in that it wants to cheapen commodities by forcing the seller to make less profit. Every year the Government borrows a million pounds, and every year it does not pay anything towards getting rid of back debts. The problem of paying debts and incurring no liabilities is one that does not trouble the present Government, merely because it won’t be a Government when the problem has to be faced. It is impossible that a Government that is past master of the art of fleecing the people at every opportunity can morally object to the Flour Trust or any other trust following in their footsteps. No doubt the Government will issue wild threats about the price of flour, and will engage Mr Millar to burst the miller up. One of the late Mr Seddon’s latest threats was aimed at the Flour Trust. It still prospers. It will continue to prosper because it has most distinguished company. A yell goes up from north to south when the millers fleece the people of a half-penny, but nobody issues any yells that are heard about the day and night, weekly, monthly, yearly fleecing of the people by a Government whose latest cry is that it wants to cheapen commodities, Its obvious duty is to tack another few p.c. on Australian flour to “bring the price down.”