The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE MONDAY, JULY 22, 1918. INDUSTRIAL CANNIBALISM.

Taihape Daily Times, 22 July 1918, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

MONDAY, JULY 22, 1918. INDUSTRIAL CANNIBALISM.

(With which is Incorporated The Fedhapo Post and Walmasi-uo News).

Our Wanganui morning contemporary reports that dairy-farmers in the Wanganui territory have sent telegrams to Ministers drawing attention to the seriously advanced price of butter boxes and cheese crates, and calling upon the Government to regulate prices of these essentials. The remarkable aspect of the dairymen’s complaint, however, is that they blame the sawmiller ror all the trouble. Dairymen only need figure up how many feet of timber there is in the box or the crate and he will find just how much the miller has added to the cost of the containers since war commenced. Every observer of the trend of markets for New Zealand products is quite aware tliac war, dr no war. the price of- some varieties of timber must have considerably advanced in price owing to scarcity and the consequent additional expenditure in machinery and labour in milling that, which at low pfices did not pay to mill. Dairymen in tne Wanganui district, the “Chronicle” says, are talking about pine going to enrich Chinese cheap furniture makers in Australia. This is silly nonsense, for we know that Australians are in a much worse position for butter and cheesepacking timber than New Zealanders can be. Here, dairymen can get all the timber they need, but they want it at much less than the market price; in Australia they are quite willing to pay the market price, but their brother dairymen in New Zealand are not agreeable for them to have it at all. Dairymen here say, “Why millers keep putting the price up is a matter for conjecture.” Why butter fat has gone up from tenpence to. twenty-two pence and twenty-five pence per pound is likewise matter for conjecture. Of course it is silly to adopt this line of argument, for what causes one product to increase in value may also be the cause of increased value of another. It is as well that dairymen who are enjoying high prices, and who yet complain that owing to cost of production it is doubtful whether they will earn the bonus this season, should realise the huge increased cost of timber-getting; but. we contend that dairymen are utireasonble in blaming sawmillers; they are making a similar mistake to that made by Wanganui builders, who contended through the same Wanganui journal that ■ cost of building a four-roomed house had gone up from roughly £4OO to £BOO through the increased cost of timber. No greater economic absurdity was ever uttered, and dairymen had better enquire what profits are extracted between the sawmiller and themselves if they wish to avoid doing injustice to anybody. This attack by one New Zealand producing industry upon another New Zealand producing industry savours very much of economic cannibalism. Producers are well within the four corners of commercial ethics in striving for the high, est market prices, and what is claimed by one industry must not be denied to another. If each will devote all the energy it has to improving markets instead of indulging in a system of “hive-robbing,” we may expect that Ne\v Zealand will reap the utmost advantage that markets have to offer. In any case dairymen have not muen to complain about since they resolved to make their butter purchasers pay for the box. When .this course was decided upon they probably failed to see how it wmuld affect the millers of white pine. It should become obvious that charging two shillings for a butter box, and allowing a precisely similar amount to the butter-buyer on its being returned, will lengthen the life of the butter box by some three or four seasons, and, at the same time, reduce the demand on the sawuniller for his white pine. So long as the butter box is not used as a source of

profit so as to become a hardship to storekeepers, there can be uo objection to this effort to economise white pine; but, again, the sawmiller has to be considered; ho cannot leave his white pine standing in the bush while he cuts all other timber around it, simply because dairymen are economising in its consumption, and are demanding the Government to regulate Its price and stop its exportation. Most sawmillers are under compulsion to remove all trees of milling size, and it seems to us that they are entitled to a similar profit on the odd patches o'f white pine in their milling bush as that they receive on other timber. An investigation of the increased rates charged for cheese crates is asked for, quite justly so if such investigations had been neglected by the Government, by the Efficiency Board and by the Board of Trade, but, anyway, condemnation of the sawmiller should be witheld, till Government and Boards declare him guilty. The Hon. W. D. S. MacDonald has stated in public meeting that sawmillers have expressed their readiness to supply New Zealand before a stick is exported, but we must have the commonsense to realise that the miller must have a remunerative price for Tils white pine and that he cannot go on storing it up any more than dairymen can indefinitely store up their butter, waiting for a prospective buyer that may never come along. Since dairymen have decided to charge full cost for butter boxes they have no complaint against anyone, as that is calculated to recoup more than the amount of increased cost of containers for butter exported. Ministers have publicly declared that sawmillers are not opposed to any just course being adopted, therefore, the silly talk about supplying Chinese in Australia In preference to the dairy industry of their own country should be abandoned, and all those engaged in our producing Industries'~should confer and work together for the advancement of their best interests, and, as a natural corollary, for the progress of New Zea. land as a whole. ...., v i : -- -