The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE THURSDAY, AUGUST 10, 1916. A SIDE-TRACKED QUESTION.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 160, 10 August 1916, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

THURSDAY, AUGUST 10, 1916. A SIDE-TRACKED QUESTION.

(With which is incorporated The Tal hape Post and Waimarino News.)

“One swallow does not make a summer,” neither does one article discover the political leanings of a public journal, as has been amply discovered by an article in the Wellington “Evening Post” on the cost of living question. No newspaper did more to help what is known as Reform into power in this country, 'and none was more calmly scathing in its discussion of that same Government’s attitude in permitting dishonest people to exploit the masses by reaping where they had not strawed. Mr Massey i s severely taken to task for his flambouyant flapdoodle, his spasm of talk about the cost of living bubble having been prick ed, and the “Post” says that the wash was father to the thought, and that in allowing a night for debate at the end of the session, when no legislative action could reasonably be expected to follow, the Prime Minister w T as merely seeking political effect. We do not grudge Mr Massey all he can get in political gallery work, but we have tne utmost contempt for a callous disregard of the people’s welfare, so far as right and justice only are concerned, that political interference which t masses are in every way entitled to. We havd referred to the Prime Minister’s attitude over the question as tne Massey drift; what does the “Post” say It says: “The belatcdness of this debate is illustrative of the Government’s general attitude towards cost of living problems, “Early in the war newspapers, deputations, and small retailers wmre up in arms against the undeserved and unearned money that was openingly being grabbed by raising the price of stocks that had been purchased and landed prior to the war, and at ordinary pre-war costs, yet, a s the “Post” points out, tiie Government “winked the other eye,” nothing w r as done to prevent such dishonesty. Later, continues our Wellington contemporary, the Government was forced by pressure of public opinion into certain interferences witn trade, such as export prohibitions. The principle of such interference being admitted, the application could

hardly be left in the purely political hands of the Government of the day. Need at once arose for an independent; expert body, but when the Board 01 Trade at last arrived its functions were found to be purely 'advisory, sw that all executive power still rests with the Government. Where big commercial interests are at stake it is undesirable that any set of politicians should be entrusted with administrative details of export prohibition, pr cc-lixing, and other relative matitis; they might as well be asked to supplant the Courts and to administer justice. The Legislature passes laws binding on Courts, but it does not deprive them of power and responsibility. x\n Advisory Court would be an anomaly, and an Advisory Fair-price Board is liable to be made a lightningconductor for taking pressure off politicians without divesting them of the ruling power. Under such circumstances it was a dishonest act to impose on the general taxpayer a Board of Trade having no power of administration. The B'oard advised the Government, but commercial interests were too strong, and the Government had not the temerity to act on the information supplied by the purely advisory body. It is, perhaps, idle to discuss the question now, as Parliament is out of session, but as the question was left to the dying hours of the House for consideration, public journals were muzzled, and whatever they say now doesn’t matter. Politicians are trusting to public forgetfulness to rid them of the stigma of their neglect of the peoples’ cause by their attitude on this cost of living question. What every true citizen has to consider is, that the Government’s neglect was purely to allow a few, a very few, people, to make a haul dishonestly. It was not an ordinary price-raising resting upon a fair trade basis. These involved extortioners have time and again enunciated in their trade meetings the true principles of price-fixing. They know it is sheer bunkum to imagine that general permanent advance in the cost of living does not involve gieneral advance in the rate of wages. They have to Aveigh the pros and cons very carefully and discreetly, and we find that articles for permanent “boosting” arc selected from those which will not raise a popular outcry. But the war has given opportunities for “first pop” throw of the dice which these same men have not been able to withstand, taking their chances of whether these spasmodic- temporary extortions afreet the labour question to their disadvantage or not. All that can be secured by a discussion of the question no is a realisation of the exact position the belated attention and neglect of the Government has left it in. The Board of Trade, from which so much was promised, turn s out to be a purely advisory body and can do nothing, and Parliament has entered into recess without even having considered the question in more than the most prefunctory of manners, and has achieved absolutely nothing in the public’s interest more than disclosing the true position, laying! bare the fact that exploitation can continue in the future as in the past for just as long as a long-suffering people will or can pur up with it.