The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1916. SHIPPING COMBINE DEMANDS.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 219, 7 November 1916, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1916. SHIPPING COMBINE DEMANDS.

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

“Rates of shipping freights,” is the title line to a circular that some person or organisation has been goocr enough to send to us. It advances nothing further __ than has been urged and stated in these columns already, but it is at least gratifying to have some indication that New Zealanders are not entirely deac to the insult and robbery that combines and trusts are almost daily heaping upon them in this hour of the Empire’s peril. The circular reproaches newspapers in that they are daily shrieking and dealing out cold criticism about the shirker who fails to realise his duty, while not a word is said about the bleeding-white process to which this country is being subjected by shipping companies; it asks, “Where is the power of the Press?” Why has the country to go on producing to a feverish extreme just to allow shipping companies to continue an ever-increasing system of robbery? The fact that British taxpayers are keeping the seas open, providing safe sea roads to such an extent that not one ship trading to New Zealand has for over a year suffered the least inconvenience, is strongly emphasised, and the fringe of the cost at which this has been accomplished is touched upon. Among the sacrifices the Empire has made to enable these slurping Shylocks to exploit our people and industries are the thousands of brave lives lost in the Jutland fight; Admiral Cradock and his noble fellows and their ships, and the hundreds of fishing boats, trawlers and other small craft with their gallant crews that have been pressed into the Empire’s service to keep the seas open and safe for shipping companies build up a scheme of exploitation and robbery no man or combine has ever previously had the audacity to approach even, to say nothing of the huge British navy and the ships cr

Australia, New Zealand has no ships but she is contributing a huge sum of money annually in. support of the Empire’s navy, to preserve a safe seaway. The greed, voracity, hcartlessness, moral insensibility and deadness of those legalised fiilibusters is baffling to one’s understanding, and wonderment is expressed at its legalised continuance. Why does the Government allow it, we are asked. It is because of the huge accumulations of wealth that members of shipping com p agues have by their methods built up, which they use to- get possession of the chief administrative positions in the Government departments whlcn concern them, as Nelson and Robinson, two of the American Meat Trust, got the handling of all New Zealand’s meat not required for the troops. The Chairman of the British Board of Trade, it is stated, is one of the largest holders of shipping shares in Britain. If this is so, his having control of shipping is only just on a par with giving our meat control to vultures of the Meat Trust. Whatever truth there may be in the statement, and it cannot be far out, as Mr. Runciman is widely known as a large holder of shipping shares, it is a fact that shipping charges have been forced up to a degree that no man on earth can even start to justify, and that establishes, the assumption that it is anything but an honourable course the Chairman of the B'oard of Trade is pursuing. Then what are the people of this country to do The shipping ring looms up more deadly before our producers than any German fortifications, battlements and guns did before our soldiers in the early days of the war, but numbers have been enlisted which has rendered them vulnerable at every point attacked, and so it will be with the shipping combine. If the people of producing countries organise and present a solid collective front no President of a Board of Trade can long withstand them. The circular under notice appeals to every association in New Zealand; to every man, to .every wife, parent, brother or sister of those men who are giving their lives, if needs be, to maintain the right to exist, to live as a nation, and to keep the. seaways open so that food may be taken from where it is produced to the men who are fighting, either on laud or sea, to insist on a reduction of 50 per cent, in shipping freights, with no reduction in the number of steamers necessary. Our men are fighting for freedom of the seas, while the greed of shipping combines is going to an extreme in minimising their efforts by making the transport of food difficult. We would suggest that an organising head should be established without delay, and methods evolved for marshalling an universal protest, a protest, that, would be undeniable, even in the meeting* room of the British Board of Trade, presided over ny the interested shipping shareholder, Mr. Runciman, If Chambers of Commerce and Farmers’ Unions do not unite throughout New Zealand to deal with this shipping menace, then this country’s earnings will be two millions less than they might be this coming season. It is still possible to avert } this shipping outrage.