The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE TUESDAY, AUGUST 15, 1916. A SHIPPING RUMOUR.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 160, 15 August 1916, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

TUESDAY, AUGUST 15, 1916. A SHIPPING RUMOUR.

(With which is incorporated The Tai bape Post and Waimarino News.)

The hackneyed old saying, "Where there's smoke there's fire," has a good deal of truth in it. Old Dame Rumour, in a fit of garrulity, may dispense verbiage that needs a deal of sorting out, but the intimation she ha s given us that one fine day we may wake up to find that New Zealand has entered into the shipping business with a fleet of twenty thousand tonners, has a dash of something more than the common, ordinary everyday kind of rumour about it. When questioned our Prime Minister gave a characteristic reply that was not satisfying, and very far from convincing. If a British newspaper of the importance and standing such as "Fair Play" enjoys, tells the world that New Zealand contemplates entering the shipping business, who is there that will say the journal doesn't know what it is talking! about? The shipping monopoly sees another danger ahead in the possibility that this country may follow the example set by Australia, and their journal is deeply concerned, and takes an early opportunity to do all it can to protect the monopoly upon which it subsists. The greatest curse of this war period is the shipping monopoly. Were it not that the Imperial Government had com ; mandeered the meat of this country, farmers would not have received half the profits on their produce they were entitled to, by far the bigger share would have been grabbed by the speculator and monopolist. The Australian Government doe s not pusillanimously vzew the disgusting manipulations of shipping firms; they boldly handle ths monrreiy that, is uicompatible with the. weliaro of their people; they i.r<ke uie -Dly method of effectually dealing with it, and they exterminate it oy de terminiug to do their own shipping business. We neec" not ask whether they are going to a safe cocr&e; while shipping companies can make profits in one year equal to the whole of the capital invested in the concern there is no occasion to worry about loss. From the smoke that is visible in "Fairplay's" article en the creation of a State shipping line in New Zealand, it must be-concluded there is at least some smouldering; embers. "Fairplay" has based its remarks upon some thing more tangible that we are yet permitted to know. Anyhow, why should this country desist from making the most sane provision for ensus-

ing the ready transport of -wool from

I farmers' "shearing" sheds, and meat from freezing) Works Why, one hesitates to say that the only bar to all produce being got away to market at the supreme moment for the greater, enrichment of the country is the greed from which monopoly springs. The larger concerns handling, produce are cannibalistic in their very nature; they strive no more for the best than they do to injure less mighty units in the same clas s of business, with a view to rendering them unprofitable and crush ing them out of existence. Contracts < will be made for shipping, with provisions for exclusion of all similar cargo from others. The stora'gie capacity or one freezing concern is overtaxed by shipping manipulations in favour or the worker for monopoly, and the man who has prime stock must either walK into the monopolist web or allow his wares to go off. The marketing mon<>- | poly i s a curse that is working incalI culable mischief to an exporting- country like this. New Zealand's trade must [ of necessity become greater, and without some sane arrangement for getting produce away, its producers will increasingly continue to suffer, until, as in some other countries, it becomes impracticable to apply the only remedy. There is, we venture to say, no question, not even war taxation, that should concern the producers of thi s country at the present moment more than that of shipping and it will be as well if they are alert to their best interests when producers who are also deeply sunk in shipping shares, come along to disinterestedly discuss the question with them. It is just much a part of the producers' business to cart his goods to market, no matter how distant that market may be. as it is for the grocer, baker, and butcher. "Fairplay" does not say a State shipping line would be unprofitable, and one can well laugh at the suggestion that shipping companies are, in the absence of State lines, going to allow anv period of low and unprofitable freights. The low and unprofitable freights that are on "Fairplay's" mind are those

that present shipping companies would suffer from lowing to State competition.