The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE MONDAY, JUNE 9, 1919. FARMERS AND SHIPPING.

Taihape Daily Times, 9 June 1919, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

MONDAY, JUNE 9, 1919. FARMERS AND SHIPPING.

With ‘which ins‘ incorporated “The Taihape Post and Waimarino News.” ' >

Has private enterprise failed in that industry that is of most’ vital importance to New Zealand?', The Farmersf Union conference, recently held in Wellington, discussed the shipping problem, but achieved nothing towards its solution. Why the conference could agree upon no method of securing improvement that would allay the nightmare with which their operations are affected, is diflicult to understand. Why are farmers following a “Taihoa” course with regard to the shipping question? What. is the spirit in their midst that is cajoling them into this policy of drift? One would almost think that 501110 members of the Farmers’ Union held considerable interests in shipping companies, or rather in -the shipping combine, for there is in reality only one company now. A waterside struggle by which seamen are affected is raging in Australia, and latest intelligence discloses that it. is ‘going to be a prolonged struggle_ Is this Dominion going to be dra.wn into an upheaval that means partial isolation from the World’s markets. if nothingmore, simply because the shipping combine and its employeeg cannot agree? A shipping combine is determined, whatever happens, to charge what. it likes, however extortionate, for its freight space, and workers’ Unions are just as determined to sell their labour at what they consider a fair price. In the meantime, and while the fight lasts, the peoples of .'Australia and New Zealand are partially isolated from the rest of the World, Will private ownership of \vatel'~carriage ever provide anything that is reliable, anything that can be

depended upon to take away this country’s products and bring back supplies at fair freight rates? For thirty years this country has been seriously handicapped by its defective means of transit for produce, and today, after thirty years of trial by Shipping companies and shipping combines, shipping is more disastrously menacing than ever it Was. Will farmers, who are the chief sufferers, give these shipping sharks another thirty years in which to block their produce from getting to market? Post War shipping troubles have only just commenced, and it is already evident that both parties, regardless of What Suffering their acts may result in, will continue the struggle, and there is positively no hope of final shipping peace. The Combine may beat the men, or the men may beat, the Combine, but the Combine is out to make its shareholders into millionaries and there will be no shipping for our pro. duce, for the men of this age, are better educated, and will not submit to the kililng off processes men have been subjected to in the past._ In Australia’ passengers, produce and merchandise are held up while the Combine and Waterside workers cannot. or will not, settle their differences. It is estimated that in Melbourne there are 80,000 out of employment; in Sydney, the end of the seamen’s do-.

spute is not in sight; in Brisbane and Perth there is no abatement of ‘the seamenfsv and watersiders’ extreme efforts to secure better conditions, and now the struggle has commenced in Adelaide, seamen, as they reach South Australian ports are giving notice of their intention to leave their iships, and no man can correctly pre|dict that this Dominion will be any 3 better off in the early future than are jthe various States or the Commonwealth. New Zealand producers have waited thirty years for shipping companies to establish reliable means of cariage lfor their produce; to-day they are immeasurably Worse off than ever they were, and prospects 5f imPl‘oVCment‘ seem hopeless. Will farmers conclude that the Combine has had ample time in which to experiment upon them and their industry, and novir urge and insist upon their shipping committee abandoning all further negotiation with the Combine, or is there some unseen force at Work in the Farmers’ Union that will succeed in tying the producers of this ‘Dominion "50 H3O 01d. current i shipping rottenness? It is apparent that the methods of the Combine must provoke strikes, and, sequentially, that shipping con——N ditions must become rapidly worse. 4 The operations of combines are incompatible with the industrial, inter-' ests of this country, and the sooner farmers realise this the sooner will they secure peace of mind respecting shipping conditions.