The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE WEDNESDAY, MARCH 19th, 1919. TOILS OF RECONSTRUCTION.

Taihape Daily Times, 19 March 1919, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 19th, 1919. TOILS OF RECONSTRUCTION.

(With which is Incorporated The Tjaitape Pont and News).

Late issues of British newspapers devoted to finance and correlated interests fully disclose the solicitude, anxiety and-, concern felt in manufacturing, financial and exporting circles in connection with the rebuilding and rc-establishment of British industries generally. In many directions, from jam-making to banking; from tea to the woollen textile trade, the whole country is cither in a state of ferment or ebuliency.. While trade, finance, and exporting interests are laying back in New, Zealand, waiting to ascertain what they can get the Govment to do for them, British traders are hustling their Government to remove the blocks to the old channels of commerce so that a repletion of the wealth ,of the country may be commenced upon without delay, in all ear- | nestness, and so that no other trading j country may have a start in capturing j their pre-war markets. There is no j indication whatever in Britain at this 1 time of any decadence in either trade, | commerce or finance. Gfeat as the j war strain was upon British industries ! of every kind, it had no effect on the j trading instincts of the race, only to | sharpen them, and to-day the whole effort of the country seems to be conj centratecl upon securing the most i rapid return possible to normal con- ! ditions. Banks have realised that opI orations of the future will not be, and I cannot successfully he, confined to | limited areas in Britain; that the ' Anglo-Saxon peoples of the world

have been brought so much closer together in sentiment and time that almost revolutionary changes are re- ; quired to cope with the new situation. Some Australasian banks hre increasing their capital to enable them to keep their feet firmly in the whirl of reconstruction that is proceeding. Shipping companies, despite the huge profits earned during the war, are scavangcring the money market for increased capital; they want more ships and still more ships; in fact the shipping appetite seems, at this moment, to be insatiable. Combines and syndicates arc growing apace, old concerns are extending and new combinations are frequently being born into the! trading world. British motor companies find orders accumulating to a state that renders it impossible to contend with unless hugely increased capital is available. One motor company alone has orders on hand to the amazing extent of over cloven millions sterling. Foodstuff manufacturing and preserving companies have formed a huge combine; Crosse and Blackwell, Lazeuby and Kciller have joined issue in the pickle business, aggregating a capital of nearly a million and a quarter. What the effect of all this heated hustle in enlarging combinations of capital and in the creation of new concerns is going to have on human life and progress generally, no very close estimate can be formed, but it seems that British traders, manufacturers and importers arc making an exhaustive effort to set the pace in bringing down Commodity prices of the world in the near future. Of course, it is of the greatest urgency that captains of industry and commerce should set in operation every possible process that they deem essential in coping with the social and industrial changes that are passing like a wave over the whole world, and if they have found that British interests can only be maintained by combining their trading and financial forces against the combined forces of other countries, wo, at this distance, can only applaud and look with admiration on such a per-fervid display of

Anglo-Saxon energy and determination. What is taking place in Britain Is in bold contrast to what is being done in New Zealand that there is really cause for alarm in this young country which is displaying an evident lack of youthful virility. While British traders, manufacturers and financiers are pestering their Government to clear away the limitations placed upon their efforts by the necessities of war, wc regretfully, sometimes contemptuously, see New Zealanders going in queues before a Government Commission, not asking for means cf extending their interests, not for the removal of war-blocks- on

their operations, but almost to a man j they want either new protective duties, i oi' old protective duties increased, or , they want the Government to fix an arbitrary and grossly fictitious value on what they produce or make. If there is any decadency cf Anglo- | Saxon trading spirit, where shall it be j looked for? In Britain or in Mew j Zealand? The most contemptible and! dishonourable methods arc adopted in j this rich young country, because the j self-imposed captains of industry arc j either incapable or lack the energy j to do as British traders are doing, j that is, to reduce the cost of every- j thing necessary to the life of the ■ inasses instead of increasing It, so as to overcome the source of all labour trouble and industrial strife. Tea importers in New Zealand recently circulated a story that tea production was not equal to the demand, inferring, of course, that the price of tea would have to bo increased to those who could afford to buy it. But what does the leading journal on such subjects in Britain tell us? It states that tea is accumulating to amazing extremes; that warehouses and wharves are full of it; it is lying neglected. This authority emphatically states that tea producers arc only receiving eightpence and a fraction per pound for best grades, and yet in Now Zealand it is passed on to the people at from' two to three shillings a pound, and a hint is given of a further Increase in price. Is this tlm correct way bo check industrial strife or are British traders taking the right course towards establishing industrial peace? While tea is lying about warehouses and wharves neglected in Britain, the profiteering clement in this Dominion toll us the supply is not equal to the demand. Surely, it is time for rearranging our trading affairs, bringing them into line with what is proceeding elsewhere. New developments have taken place in Britain’s iron and steel trade, revealing the .energy that is being put into these industries. From what is written of the iron trade, roofing iron for house-building should !be selling at little more than half 1 what is at this moment demanded in New Zealand for it. As Bolshevism Is a disease of society, sc is profiteering a disease on our trade and industry. Bolshevism, if not caused, is encouraged by the .results of profitoering, by insufficient food, ill-housing, and low standard of living sought to bo forced upon the masses generally. In Britain the trading- instinct of the Anglo-Saxon is asserting itself, prodding the Government on to the’ removal of restrictions on production of every kind, primary and otherwise, and it. is not to the credit of AngloSaxons in Now Zealand that they arc importuning their Government for added restrictions on trade that can only result in aggravating the already advanced gravity and seriousness of •he industrial outlook.