FIGHTING FOREIGN TRUSTS. What about the Colonial Article ?

Free Lance, Volume VI, Issue 273, 23 September 1905, Page 6

FIGHTING FOREIGN TRUSTS. What about the Colonial Article ?

OUR friend the Yankee is pretty 'cute. If he cannot "trade" with countries that raise a big tariff against his wares, he simply goes to that country and manufactures in it. A while ago he found that Britain could undersell him m many classes of goods he wanted to sell in Britain. What did he do? He simply built factories in England, and employed English workers, and sent the proceeds to America. Tn fact, he got there just the same. * * • He is out to steal the harvester trade of the colonies. If we raise a tariff wall as high as the destructor against the Yankees they will probably — if it is worth while — still sell Yankee farm implements here just as they still rake in a profit from every ton of kerosene sold in Australasia. They have countless millions to back them, and if they desire to "work" New Zealand they will probably find some way, like a veritable "Tatteraall." But, while we worry about American trusts and plan for their crippling, we ought to think about the ever-increasing number of twopennyhalfpenny combines that threaten the people of New Zealand. New Zealand coal, bread, flour, butter, etc., are more important to the people of New Zealand than American farm implements. A number of people who join hands to raise the price of bread a half-penny a loaf are a combine ; a few merchants; who control the siipply of butter m a city and who meet together and decide to make a larger profit out of a necessary of life are also a, combine. • * * The people have no present redress, although the price may be excessive. It is only by legislation that relief can be effected We should be less concerned at the possible exploitation of the colony by the Yankees than about the exploitation of colonists by colonial combinations We ha.ye had a sample of the methods of the dollar-grab-bers in the operations of the flour trust, and we have examples under our own eyes — not counting the beer trust — where combinations of capitalists are able to- grind the faces of the people. • * • New Zealand pays far too large a price for its daily necessities, and exports its best produce to be sold at a less price than obtains locally. To get the best New Zealand meat or butter, and to get it cheap, one has to go to> London. You can boycott the Yanke© machine-maker, but you cannot boycott the New Zealand butter or meat grower, or the colonial coal-dealer. He has got his thumb on you. There is only one means of getting the thumb removed, and that is by making it illegal for traders to make more than a fair profit. We don't want any multi-millionaires in New

Zealand, and we don't want any Yankee' trusts to operate here. But most of all, we don't want colonial trusts to batten on colonial pockets. It is a sin.