The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE WEDNESDAY, JUNE 13, 1917. A STATE SHIPPING LINE.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 13 June 1917, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 13, 1917. A STATE SHIPPING LINE.

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

To the industrious people in this tiny speck of land in the South Pacific ocean, known as New Zealand, there is nothing more essential or of more vital importance than a sure, unfailing, complete and effective means of maritime communication yuth the land from which they came and with the rest of the world from which they are isolated by thousands of ..miles of ocean. And yet such an isolation was on the brink of becoming possible. For many decades this land had by its own efforts been enjoying all the benefits and advantages that two splendid shipping lines conferred. Two years ago there came to these shores the shipping octopus; it fixed its tentacles into one of our splendid shipping institutions and strangled it, absorbing it into itself. Far-sighted commercial men saw and wondered how long the octopus would be allowed by our rulers to feed on the vitals of our production before striking in defence; they pictured that extreme condition when our producers would have to submit to such inducements for the ships that then belonged to strangers to come and carry their fast-rotting stores to a market where they could be turned into money. They saw this “God’s Own Country” without a ship to carry away the rich store of treasure which had been taken from its soil, and its farmers with uplifted hands praying and beseeching the octopus to assist them. .The assistance came, .but at what a cost and sacrifice; prices offered had gone so low that a hare existence could only be scraped from the best of farms, and land values had gone down in sympathy. These far : sighted men realised that the producers of this country were near, perilously near, to such a consummation when the shipping trust tentacles had whipped across and were encircling the Union Company. The birthright of this country was being sold by Union Company shareholders for the P. and O. mess of pottage regardless of the chasm of danger and uncertainty they wore thereby casting our producers and our future progress into. This country was only separated from the brink of that chasm by a few days when our Government sighted the danger and disaster that •had cast their shadows upon our production and trade. The Cabinet room in Wellington, became a scene of serous and earnest deliberation, and within a few snort hours the joyful news went forth that a stunning blow had been dealt the shipping monsterthat calamity had been temporarily averted; that all this country’s shipping, and all other shipping trading with us had been placed “holus bolus” in the care and under the sole direc-

union uompauy saarenomeis were neither to be allowed to sell a ship or even a share in a ship to anybody not a New Zealander. Our Government, at the eleventh hour realised that New Zealand might just as well sink back into the ocean from which Maui fished it as to allow it to become the feeding ground of any voracious shipping monster, and they took the only means available to rescue it from those who would sell it into such slavery. Our producers can temporarily breathe freely again. The course the Government has taken represents the most that was vitally possible; what the ultimate intention is we do not yet know, but we may rest assured from the far-reaching nature of the first blow, the fight against the shipping combine will be carried on till decisive victory is reached. It is unbelievable that it is the intention of our Government, after dealing such a stunning blow, to eventually run away, leaving the combine in full possession. The Government is now in the place of the man at the wheel, and having once determined upon taking that position it is unthinkable that it will ever again relinqiush it to any shipping ring A country so isolated as this is should certainly have its own shipping, and were it not for the fact that its people had established two such institutions as the New Zealand Shipping Company and the Union Company there would doubtless have arisen the necessity for a State line long ere this. The State line is now a sine qua non to the maintenance of the country’s progress; Government has risen to the greatness of the occasion and the State line is almost within sight At no time has any Government rendered this land a greater service We are presuming that the State will take the place of the shipping * combine, pay the Union shareholders the sum they had agreed to accept from the P. and O. Company, and retain complete control. Producers will realise that the benefits to them of such an arrangement are incalculable, and every man and woman should realise that this act of the Government means that all money from bur primary industries will be retained in this country, providing an ample circulation that will spell prosperity, 'something more than a living wage to its workers, and create a spending power among our population without which our business houses would languish and have a struggle for existence. It is one of those long hoped for conditions which operate against the rich becoming richer and the poor poorer. The future progress of this country as opposed to the interests of trusts and combines depends upon the adoption of just such national enterprises as we have now launched upon.