The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1918. A REMARKABLE REPORT.

Taihape Daily Times, 1 November 1918, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1918. A REMARKABLE REPORT.

(With which is Tneorpiu-atud The Xai* hapo Poet aDri Viraliaun-jo News)..

One of the most ill-treated bodies set up by the Government to relieve ft of responsibility for robberies that have been enacted in this country since war began seems to be that known as the Board ;-i Trade, Mo institution of its kind Is tc be more pitied; every nasty ques’ion t ching upon the cost of living that Ministers will not take responsibility for is cruelly put on to the shoulders of the • poor fellows who have been unlucky enough to be selected and appointed as the cost of living, or in other words the profiteering and robbery buffer between the people and those from whom their commission came. 'This/Board was recently sent out to curse..the Trades and Labour Council’s reportn of their enquiries concerning the cost of living, and it has abundantly blessed it. It no doubt tried to do its authors’ bidding, and we believe it thinks it has succeeded. There are also indications that the Prime Minister is of opinion that it is going to lay the Trades and Labour ghost, by the way he i& flashing it around; but in that’Council there are at least a few who know something about trade, and those few will no doubt give the Board a rather uneasy time. The Board’s criticism of the Trades and Labour Council’s report is in the form of an apology for shippers and merchants, and those, who qqntrpl exports and imports. Those poor men are compelled to find .double and sometimes treble'the capital they ,required in pre-war times to carry on their business.- If it were any,other body or person who told such a story, we should,- -in face of facts furnished by the Government Statistician, call them fools, or some other less complimentary name, they have so grossly outraged the public intelligence. The Government Statistician shows that the cost of living has increased by fifty per cent, and yet the Board has the audacity to tell Parliament and people;that to earn this fifty percent, the merchant, required to increase his capital .by one hundred, in some cases two . hundred per cent. ~. Bah! Disgusting twaddle. The Merchants’ Association. is defunct, says the Board of Trade,,and takes some pains,in establishing, the truth of the statement, but the Board might also have said that it had been reorganised; , rr as „a philanthropic society,., for that, f has most assuredly taken place if its members pay one hundred or two hundred per cent, more for their goods and pass them on to the public with only a fifty per cent advance on original cost. The Board seriously reports to Parliament that merchants are selling what costs them double or treble prewar rates, at an advance of fifty per cent on pre-war rates, thereby making a loss of from fifty to one hundred and fifty per cent Having a little knowledge of trade, commerce and economics, we should have thought the goods that cost the importers and others one hundred and two hundred per cent rnuore would have been handed out to The people at an advance of from two hundred to six hundred per cent, for qf course the merchant is entitled to charge profits on the increased capital involved, but that shows how dangerous it is to possess a little knowledge. At- any rate we think it is the duty of the Prime Minister to compel the Board of Trade to explain how the tradng legerdemain is performed, for, of course, it can be nothing but camouflage, unless the philanthropic suggestion is a lucky one. A case in which the High Commissioner is one of the actors is instanced by the Board to prove that calico has gone up four hundred per cent., subdolously sandwiched in to support the increased capital story, but we would suggest to the Board that while the cost of living to the consumer is shown to i be only fifty per cent more than in pre-war days, it is rather monstrous if not also ridiculous and stupid to urge that wholesalers require two hundred per cent more capital to carry on. The only alternative we have to believing' the Government Statistician correctly states the cost of living case, is to believe the Board of Trade story that wholesalers require capital that could only imply The whole means of existence had gone up from two hundred to three hundred per cent to the consumer. If the Board takes its lower figure as the average increased cost to wholesalers it is evidently wrong; it has been misinformed, or it has lacked the perspicacity to correctly understand the evidence taken The Board

is equally unfortunate in Its defence

of profiteering.; under the caption that competition kra safeguard. If the Board’s statements are free from disingemiousness will it explain why the strain on the consumers’ sovereign in Christchurch is twenty-five shillings, while in Taihape and other places it is thirty shillings? If the Board has, in fact, regulated prices of commodities in statistical tables, how is it that people should, have to pay twenty-five shillings in one town and thirty shillings in another for precisely similar commodities? The Board states that competition ensures the consumer getting his requirements at lowest cost, consistent with safe-trading, and sets out to demonstrate the truth of its statement with a fallacy. It argues because farmers’ co-operative associations sell at competitive prices and because any consumer can buy from them at prices charged to members, prices are kept down by competition, whereas the competitive element is conspicuous only by its absence. Does the Board seriously ask people to believe that farmers are such fools as to furnish hundreds of thousands .of pounds in establishing their trading concerns without obtaining some advantage not enjoyed by the casual consumer? If it does we would recommend it to study balance sheets that have recently been published by farmers’ trading concerns, and get its collective mind disabused. It seems that tlie trading instinct ...in the farmer needs no promptings from the Board of Trade; the farmers’ trading organisations are in no way a parallel; farmers are not such idiots to sell to themselves over the counter for one shilling and to the public for eighteen-pence; that would eliminate all custom from the non-member public. Farmers not only receive bonuses and dividends on their purchases, but the dividends are largely swelled by the purchases made by the public generally. If the Board’s argument is based intelligently and truthfully on the evidence they have taken, their case must indeed be a had one. We do not presume to say on whom the profiteering sin rests, we do not know, but the Board has tabulated evidence , 5 •> ,i >. ? ; ■ • ■ showing that only for its effort 'the cost pf many, articles have been fully from ten to two hundred per cebt 1 higher than they are at present. We ■think the Board’s reoprt should be re- , . - m r,. ,i.t j ferred Pack ..for,, consideration with a view to haVing it brought more into consonance with general intelligence, " '' ‘‘