The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE FRIDAY, AUGUST 17, 1917. ANTI-MEAT TRUST PROPOSAL.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 17 August 1917, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

FRIDAY, AUGUST 17, 1917. ANTI-MEAT TRUST PROPOSAL.

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

Yet another proposal for strangling the American Meat Trust comes * from the Dunedin Chamber of Commerce; it is that there should be a federation or defensive alliance of New Zealand freezing companies. It was argued that the weakness in the meat business' was not in this country, but at the marketing end. Of this we are not so sanguine; if the Meat Trust is not allowed to get possession at this end, it is hampered very considerably in getting possession at the other. We are too really with our belief that whatever happens at this end does not count. There is no harm, it is thought, in taking prices far above the Government requisition figures and giving possession at this end, but when once in possession it remains the property of the Meat Trust, it is released to them at the other end, and they demand just as high a price from the British consumers as they can engineer. Let us be honest about the question; the Dunedin people talk about the freezing companies having mastered the position at this end while it has done nothing to control the market end. An attitude of this kind is suspicious, for the freezing companies nor anyone else have effected anything towards stopping the operations of the trusts, and of our meat business that is fast going to ruin. We have neither taken control in New Zealand nor in London; to deceive ourselves about this fact is further playing into the hands of the arch enemies of our farming industry. The Dunedin Chamber of Commerce chairman wants something to counteract the evil threatening our meat trade. We cannot understand such utterances only on the assumption that the Dunedin speaker either has not a full understanding of his subject or is dissembling with the very trust members. He assumes that everything is quite right at this end, but that it needs a federation of companies to prevent the rake off of enormous profits in England. We can go on taking three or four shil-

lings per head for sheep above the fixed price here, and then hope to do away with profiteering at the consuming end. Such a hope is indeed a forlorn one. Taking the three or four shillings per head above requisition price from the buyer here is just as venal a practice as taking excess profits from the British people. We are not sure that it is not worse, because it places our meat in the very hands of the very people who do the robbery business at the other end. We cannot very well regard our profiteering as good business and then turn round and call tile profiteers at the other end thieves. Let us clear out our own Augean stables, first by putting our meat selling beyond suspicion and beyond the temptations of the trust devil. All we have to do is -to put the meat into our freezing I works at the fixed price and then set about eliminating every vestige of trust taint in marketing what meat the British Government has no use for. It seems that a federation or a alliance of freezing companies could be made a powerful means of wiping out the trust so far far as our meat is concerned Such an alliance would probably be able to convince farmers that, in taking the trust bait of a few shillings a head more than fixed prices, they were' merely swallowing a palatable poison that would eventually react to their utter destruction. We are urging farmers to send their stock to bona fide farmers’ freezing works, because we are overwhelmingly convinced of the terrible nature of the ruin they are inviting by rushing round after tile highest trust shilling. We are very anxiously awaiting a report from the Committee set up by the Government [on the subject. THE WAR LOAN There are some men, even in our Parliament, who are stupid enough to say that Britain should find all the money to win for these Dominions freedom from the interference of any enemy. Well, true it is that there are soulless beings who would place their responsibilities on anybody or anything. We need only watch the news cabled from London to learn that it is hopeless to look to Britain for money,and to see and realise that even the great British Empire is now forced to adopt means of loan-raising that she previously made unlawful. Yesterday it was cabled that Mr. B'onar Law was seriously suggesting that, loans shoul be raised by the issue of premium bonds, and, under the circumstances, we are not at all sure that Britain is not fully justified in now taking such a course. It is well known that British moheyed people have come to the Empire’s assistance most liberally; families are now living on a fare that is spurned ■by some workers; they have lent nearly all they possess to the Government. But they are very close to the enemy, in fact, have visits from him, which are gfraught with much of the horror of real war. They rush with \ their money because they are occasionally face to face with the superlative in all that is brutal, bloodthirsty, ravaging, ail'd murderous. Were we similarly placed we should raise a fifty, million loan just as readily and easily as we raise twelve' millions now if it were necessary. Had we but for one day the awful experiences of such an air raid even as British people suffer, there would be no need to offer tempting inducements to get our moneyed men to lend their money to the Government for carrying on the war against those who are imperilling our Empire. Fully half our members of Parliament argued strongly that the Government was altogether too liberal in fixing the interest payable on loans at 4| per cent, free of income tax. They very fairly urged that such inducements were likely to draw money from other purposes and Investments to earn the high . profits which the War Loan Prospectus provides for, and the only reply lies in the fact that only twelve millions are now asked for, whereas the country could, if it were a matter of must, quite easily raise fifty millions. The people of this country have gone on making free gifts of huge sums of money for various purposes, the result of the war. Now it is a matter of helping their own country, their own, men, their own cause, against the cruellest foe the w r orld has ever given birth to, They are offeree! more than is a fair remuneration to deposit their money for a term with the Government; not only that, they are given inscribed stock the market value for which will advance with the victory the money helps to achieve. As the opportunity for. this splendid investment is limited-only about two weeks —we shall continue to remind the people of our wealthy territory from day to day “lest they forget.” The full detailed prospectus is published on page seven of this issue.