BUTTER-PASS IT ON.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2190, 16 October 1920, Page 4

BUTTER-PASS IT ON.

(Mauawfitii Times.) If anybody hereabouts has got any idea as to bow the Minister ft I! Finance can. raise fdOO.OtIO a year “without a.nybody feeling it," ,in order that tlie butter producers may be subsidised to the point of. equivalence with British prices, now is the time to smut it along. The Butter Committee appointed by the House Juts argued, very logically, that us no restriction has been placed on tbo prices of other products, if is not fair that butter should be sorted out for, special treatment. It is proposed, therefore, that it sullieioul amount should bo requisitioned for the requirements of the local population at 2/1! per lb. and tbal the retail price should be 2/2 cash or 2/5 boohed. The Prime Minister has ponded out that every penny of subsidy is going to cost fItiD.IKHJ. and the Job is lo discover some sect ion of the population which wili find six penn’orth of a subsidy on this scale. One member ejaculated ‘‘Put it on the death duties!” and another, ‘‘Put. it on beer!" but snap suggestions of that kind are not .very helpful. There'has been a good deal of talk about stopping export, and declaring butler

‘‘black,’' and a section of thoughtless people applaud the suggestion. Some time ago a restriction was put. upon wheat, and the wheal-growers immediately looked for--and found- -more profitable forms of production. There is nothing to prevent the butter factories from going' out of that line of business and concent rating on choose and other commodities and thus producing a bid lor famine. For many years meat has been expensive locally in comparison with the export parity, and everyone knows that the finished wool product costs the average Now Zealander very much more than circumstances seem lo warrant. The same thing happens with hides and boot.-. Vet it is not proposed to deHaro meat amt wool and hides ■'black.” .Any snob policy would lead New /Zealand along the broad highway lo ruin, because we need the money that those raw products bring in to purchase commodities abroad and to pay our private and national debts. There is no argument for restriel i tig prices oi ope product which could not bo as effectively used for restricting the prices of all products. The result would be the same. Re d t ictiou means repudiation, and repudiation spells—bankruptcy. But Cabinet h: faced with the position that the wage-earners have got to haw cheaper butter or more wages, and they arc naturally searching for the Hue of least resistance. Hence the subsidy proposal, objectionable and illogical by any other test, but necessitated by expediency. The' fact, is that New Zealanders are a pampered people wlm are not prepared to face deprivation, and have no capacity fur self-denial. They spent last rear ill, - so. 2 IP! on strong drinks, some millions on going to and horn racecourses and in betting, and ,i]l sorts of money on amuseomii’s o! various hinds, bill, t-hiy nr,. not prepared to forego one hem iitjely to minister to their palates or Muir pleasures so long ms by agitations am] threats directed mainly at the poiit icbin.s. they call evade the eons.qm-nees of this spendtiiiil'i mode of life. And yet because (lie dairy farmers, who. as a class, an- probalip. Mm baldest worked and most thrifty ami provident people in (be ''onnmmPy, have been lamping lii,. rewa.rd m their industry of late, arc demandi:,,; Ibe open market for thair products- -in t he Same, way that the wage, earners are demanding the open market for their la hour-- hid ler is lo be declared "blink” unless tbe politicians can pass the holier burden on to some other eiass ‘‘who util not feel it.” .Abraham Lincoln created I savin at: "’Veil cannot too! the whole of ile- people I ho whole of tlie time.” Ci o',edm. h is because (hey are so busy fooling I hemsol ves. The ),utter sul, sidy can only come out of Inc common pool. There is no way ol dodging if, and no way of passing it on!