The Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY, AUGUST 31, 1916. RISE IN FREIGHTS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1605, 31 August 1916, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY, AUGUST 31, 1916. RISE IN FREIGHTS.

FREIGHTS luive'g'oiic* up to an extent much beyond the most pessimistic expect.-i(ion, in view of the large margin of profit earned by shipping companies, said Mr W. G. Foster, chairman of directors at a meeting of the Wellington Meal Export Company. It is, however, beyond question that whilst these freights press heavily on the shippers, they can hardly be said to he above 1 the possible earnings had the ships been diverted to other routes and employment, but it is not unreasonable to assume that there is in existence a combination which, by its wide operations, under present necessitous conditions, force's freights to levels which an “open” condition of (hi* shipping market would preclude, until now rates are seriously, if not ruinously, oppressive. The possibility of control is, of course, entirely beyond Dominion shippers and freights users, but: it should not be so in respect to the Imperial Government. It has commandeered our meat for its lighting forces, and tor its civilian consumers, and it should not be impossible for it to apply (o the gander the same sauce that is good for the goose, but, of course, in view of the do per cent, tax on shipping profits, which comes out of overseas pockets, it is easy to see that it would be a somewhat heroically unselfish action to deprive itself of this tax, hut the slumbering conscience of (he powers that he is being awakened .(vide Press .Association cable of the 22nd instant, wherein Mr Winston Churchill stigmatised the rise in freights as a “scandal'’), and perhaps they may provide a limitation of freights instead of a taxation of profits (herefrom. .May it he that the Imperial Government, is not sufficiently independent of financial potentates, many of whom are intimately concerned in shipping interests. However, it may he some slight consolation that, by way of Imperial war taxation of profits, New Zealand producers are “willy riilly” indirectl.v' contributing handsomely to the. prosecution of the war.