The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE SATURDAY, AUGUST 3, 1918. AFTER WAR ROCKS AHEAD.

Taihape Daily Times, 3 August 1918, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

SATURDAY, AUGUST 3, 1918. AFTER WAR ROCKS AHEAD.

("With which is Incorporated The Taihape Poat and WaTnrarl-io News).

The multitude of diverse opinions about after war trade and shipping now finding expression indicates very definitely that organisation of capita? is well forward for securing an entire return to what some people are pleased to term private enterprise. Two rather extraordinary statements have recently been made, which fairly discover the two extremes of opinion respecting capital and labour; a New Zealand farmer stated in his address to the conference of New Zealand farmers now in session in Wellington, that “by the time the war Is ended it will be proof conclusive that all interference and direction of trade by Government would in ordinary times be intolerable. In war-time we put up with it, but no nation or country could survive the ordeal of Government interference.” The opposite view is by Mr. Ashley, one of Britain’s most noted economists, who epitomises his summing up in saying, “The only arbiter between capital and labour must be force.” We supremely hope that neither extreme is anywhere near the mark, hut we shall do well to give very serious attention to our after war social aryl industrial status, for any industrial war in which the only arbiter must be force Is going to do more towards setting back civilisation than the military struggle if it continues for another five years. The great British economist seems to see how disastrous the great class war Is going to he, from the careful, hurriec and huge preparation the capitalist class is making for it, and Sir James Wilson seems to visualise the ultimate of it in his statement that “some system will yet evolve which will bring about the old-time friendship between employer and employee.” There are probably many men in New Zealand who are the sons of British farmers, born on a British farm nearly sixty years ago, who will have very vivid memories of the kind of friendship that existed between the faTiher and his men. Howbeit, all that need now he said about that is, if capitalists are determined to set back civilisation to such days, then there is very serious cause for long and earnest pondering over Mr. Ashley’s opinion, that force must be the only arbiter. Mr. Wilson left his hearers in no doubt about his views on private enterprise, for Ire asserted that “trade, profession, *ana occupation must be free and untranrmelled.” It would be as well to realise before trouble arises that if capitai is to be free and untrammelled in the profiteering for which it is worldwide notorious, the population of the earth must largely consist of victims. _ Shipping rings are feverishly preparing for after war time, and there are not wanting cases of very strange bedfellows. When the people of this Dominion read of a somewhat obscure New Zealand nobody, having nothing, getting into the same bod with the millionaire shipping king, Inchcape, is it any wonder they marvel and ask questions? The disregard of soldier repatriation is pregnant with a hurricane of labour troubles; what is going to become of the men? To endeavour to put them to road-making in the land they have fought for will assuredly precipitate trouble. If trade is to be absolutelji) free and untrammelled what is going to be the ultimate of trusts and rings? What is going to happen to the greirt majority of farmers who have no monetary interest in either meat trusts or shippings rings, and cannot get any? To save farmers from shipping vultures during the war it became necessary for Government to go into the shipping and meat business; are farmers to understand that directly the war with Germany ceases trust and syndicate vultures are to be let loose on their meat and wool? We can quite understand that huge combinations of capital will stand at nothing to defeat the Government in an effort

to secure freedom to do as they please, but will they be allowed to succeed? The very language used by the great English economist warns us of wbar is to come, or rather of what is in preparation. Despite the claim that after war trade must be untrammelled that capitalists’ elysium and proletariat hell will never be realised, for if private enterprise constitutes the only i system by which the world can live, why did it fail so disastrously while the British Empire was threatened with slavery and extinction by Germany? Untrammelled private enterprise had to go at a moment’s notice; the State had to take possession of railways, coal-mines, and shipping. Britain is getting the country’s best organsing business ability to work in conjunction with the Admiralty, and boards composed of the best lay ability have been selecTea to run railways and coal-mines; in.fact, the British Government is establishing such permanent systems that makes it plain that the State does not intend to relinquish either shipping, mines or railways to private enterprise. The war has proved conclusively that private enterprise failed the State in successfully conducting the war; private enterprise would have taken every vessel trading with New Zealand to carry trust meat from Argentine; private enterprise could not mine the coal for war and other purposes, and we regard that individual, 'Whoever he is, as insane, who believes that the State is ever going to trust to free, untrammelled private enterprise again. Whatever freedom the capitalist claims canont be denied to labour, and the fact that shipping is to be removed from control by the Board of Trade and placed under the control of the Admiralty is notable evidence that the old days of exploitation are gone for ever. There are those who would exploit the masses to add to their store of millions regardless of whether the trade of the Empire was mqlial to maintaining its place among the peoples of the world or not. Unless private enterprise in shipping is made to give way to control by the Admiralty it will not be long from the cessation of hostilities before Herr Ballln is master of the ocean 'freightage or the world. British private enterprise has conclusively shown that it cannot compete against the private enterprise of Germany. After war trade Is going to be dictated by a few million, aires, or by the people as a whole; the money of a few is to be pitted against the aggregate intelligence of very nearly the whole Empire. Now is the time that the national thought should be concentrated on after war conditions if privation and disaster are to be avoided, and our producers are not to be placed face to face with partial or complete ruin. America's war aim is to “save the world for democracy;” are our men lighting for a similar goal, or is their blood being profusely spilt to clear the way for millionaires, profiteers and extortioners? 4 .