The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE WEDNESDAY, MAY 14, 1919. SHIPPING AND PRODUCTION.

Taihape Daily Times, 14 May 1919, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

WEDNESDAY, MAY 14, 1919. SHIPPING AND PRODUCTION.

(With wtieh is tDcorpnrated The Tai* hape Post and WalraaiTao Mown).

Many years ago the determination of one large sheep-farmer was the means of raising the price of sheep throughout the whole Wellington Province, at least, but it is very probable that sheep-farmer benefited all farmers throughout the colony. One or two freezing companies had a monopoly, for the meat industry was then in its infancy. In those days the wool was I worth more than the rest of the sheep, I and' this became a very serious mat-| ter for breeders of southdowns and other short-woolled animals. The station-owner we refer to told the freezing company that ho would put up boiling-down works and render himself independent of them if better prices for carcases were not forthcoming. The freezing people took the situation as one of bluff and the result was that a huge boiling-down works was erected, and whatsoever farmer who would was allowed to boil down instead of working for the benefit of the freezing monopoly. This lessened the supply of raw materia] to such an extent that the freezing people wore , glad to capitulate, and enter into an j arrangement which paid the sheep- j farmer to scrap his boiling-dowu works. It is because the handling of the produce of the farmer lends itself more to exploiting than anything else that it is always beset with one gang or another of exploiting vultures; the produce of the farmer is an essential, something that people must have whatever the price demanded for it be. As time goes on and the industry progresses and extends parasites become more powerful and insistent. It is not the puny little trust of thirty-five years ago that one sheep-farmer was able to break with a boiling-down works; it is the huge octopus that has its tentacles fastened upon the product of farms in all parts of the world; the meat trust that only the combined and determined efforts of a whole people can make any impression upon. As the oldtimc station-owner based his salvation upon boiling down works, so present day farmers have come to the realisation that their escape from the meat vultures lies through this country owning its own line of shipping. From a list of remits sent up by varj ious Branches of the Farmer’s Union for discussion at the Wellington Provincial Conference, to be held this month, several are based upon the sheep industry’s needs in connection with shipping. One Branch would merely draw State attention to meat congestion through shortage of shipping; another advocates right out State Control of shipping that carries Now Zealand produce to the Home markets; while yet another not only wants State Control, but prescribes the mode in which it should be established. It urges that the huge sums of money now paid to the Shipping Combine by the State for carrying the Dominion’s mails should be capitalised and sufficient ships purchased to carry mails, passengers and produce. This is a businesslike suggestion and however much it might he railed against by Combine cravens, or politicians who are involved in Combine and Trust

toils, its virtues will' weather all attacks. The time and opportunity has now arrived, however, for the adoption of still better propositions. The Shipping Controller, in the House of Commons, told Members that all Germany’s passenger ships had been handed over to Britain, and that twenty-one of them had been allotted to Australasia. Who was it that stilled the Controller’s tongue from stating how many were to be given to New Zealand? Why was this Dominion lumped in an obscure term, which now has no very I definite meaning? Is New’ Zealand of no more importance than the smaller j South Sea Islands, that it cannot be trusted with the truth about what German ships falls to its share from participation in the war? Are men of the supreme vocation to be fooled into false hopes while our Government passes on the German ships, allotted to this country, to the shipping Combine, hugely increasing its power for spoliation? Besides the twenty-one German pasosnger ships alloted to Australasia, there are a large number of merchant vessels not primarily intended as passenger carriers; how many of such ships will be allotted to Australasia? Is the farming industry so corrupted and contaminated with Combine Canker that it can be dragged, lock, stock and barrel, Into the Combine clutches? It is time for farmers who have their country’s best interests uppermost to talk plainly and act promptly. They have a right to ask and to know r how many of the twenty-one Gorman passenger ships arc to belong to New Zealand, and bow many German merchant ships are to become New Zealand property by virtue of the lives and money New Zealand has sacrificed in the war, and that right should be exercised now. There may be men among them affected with Combine Canker who will urge waiting to see what the Government will do, but they may wait to see those ships, which are the property of the State, flying the Combine’s flag. Did this country bleed for nearly five years for combines and trusts; to enmesh its producers and people in the toils of shipping and mercantile looters? We are making use of strongly worded sentences because wc fully' realise that there is a possibility, if not a probability, of German ships going the way of the Combine that should come to the salvation of our country. If there is a sheep-farmer in this Dominion who is in league with combines and trusts he should be regarded as a traitor, for bo is nothing more than a tool to another bidder for world hegemony, no less to be feared than was the Kaiser, We look forward with absorbing interest to learn how tlic Wellington Provincial Conference of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union will handle and discuss the all-important subject of shipping. Discussions will without doubt disclose whether there is any Combine under-c.urrent. but. from whatever source it may come, Government or otherwise, it should not be spared. Wo are hoping that the Conference will insist upon knowing all there is to be known about the disposition of German ships, and also about the disposal of the large number of standardised ships that arc in course of construction. In this lies the solution of the New Zealand shipping shortage and shipping tariff problem for all time.