SOME OF THE PROFITS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1672, 8 February 1917, Page 2

SOME OF THE PROFITS.

THE Lyttelton Times has again •been delving into the figures ■ supplied in the latest issue of the New Zealand Trade Review with a view to showing what war profits have been made by our primary producers since the campaign started. Our contemporary prints a table showing the quantity and values of six classes of exports for the export year of 1913, 1915, and 1916, the percentage of increase or decrease in quantity and of value over or under the figures for 1913 being given in each instance. Though less wool was actually exported in 1910 than in 1913 values rose 53.71 per cent., from £8,057,620 to £12,386,074; frozen meat, 63.40 per cent., from £4,449,915 to £7,276,318; butter, 27.68 per cent., from £2,061,542 to £2,632,293; tallow, 18.-12 per cent., from £663,088 to £785,339; cheese, the phenomenal increase of 98.51 per cent., from £1,770,270 to £3,514,310; and hemp, 38.75 per cent., from £721,924 to £1,001,725. The Times says it does not present this table as a satisfactory gauge of the extent to which war profits are being pocketed in this country. The totals for 1916 do not represent the normal volume of trade belonging to the year, as in the December quarter a. shipping shortage considerably delayed the forwarding of supplies. The figures, also, deal with only a portion of the exports of the Dominion, and necessarily afford no indication of the extent to which profits are being made on articles of staple consumption within the boundaries of the Dominion. Notwithstanding all these limitations, the following table shows that profits have been made during two war years totalling over twelve and ahalf millions sterling:— WAR PROFITS, 1915 1916 £ £ Wool 1,987,006 4,457,000 Meat 1,674,000 1,573,000 Butter 380,000 645,000 Tallow *2,250 129,700 Cheese 364,000 1,055,000 Hemp *20,000 290,400 Totals 4,405,000 8,150,100 ‘indicates loss. The net total figures for the Iwo years are: —Wool, £(>,444,000; meat, £3,247,000; butler, £1,025,000; tallow. £127,450; cheese. £1,419,000; hemp, £270,400; total, £12,532,850. In their gross total the war profits of the Dominion are probably “uncountable,’’ for I here are no statistics which can give a clue to their exact dimensions, though com-mon-sense indicates that they exist, and that their amount is considerable.