The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE MONDAY, JULY 28, 1919. FARMERS AND TAXATION.

Taihape Daily Times, 28 July 1919, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

MONDAY, JULY 28, 1919. FARMERS AND TAXATION.

With which its incorporated “The Taihape Poss and Wainiarino News.”

During the peregrinations of the New Zealand Trade Commission ample food for surprise was furnished at the audacity of the great army of witnesses who wanted to save their country by compelling the people to hewanvily ‘tax themselves to pay protective duties to enable the respective works the witnesses were interested in, to be established and run at a remuntrative profit. In face of what protected industries are doing for the people of this eoruntry” !the requests and ‘protestations faxvouring further extension of the protected industry business, the impudence of witnesses amounted to ludicrousness. P_rotected industries, indu:s'tri'es¢ ttlliat the people ‘are being taxed to enable remun-erative profits being made, are levying from the people, who make their industry possible, i profitg aniounting to .some,.. 1000- per [ cent.. We icannotn believe; the-,.-masses. ‘of thepeople. realise what is actually i-taking place, 1-or they would never con- ‘ sent to such factories remaining open; i but, we are inclined to the opinion that the days of protected manufacture ends. ?with the election of -another Government sometime during this year. It is questionable whether there will ever be another farmer so foolish, so careless of his own interests, who will ever record another vote for the establishment of protected manufacturers. Farmers will surely have noted how effectually "the imanufaclturers and traders in power manxaclcd them; tied them down by law and Imperial requisition to a price beyond which they must not go, before commencing their process of extortion. Boards of Trade, composed of so-called b'ilss,nessLn§n: trade commissions, of so-called businessmen; lfl. Government of supposedly businessmen_, have worked together-‘tot limit the prices of everything theyifarin-,, er produces. When once wool,‘ meat,‘ hides, and other products were brought to a dead level low value beyond which the farmer couldinot go, what an orgy of price’-nl:a-king profiteering, extortion, and plundcrfollowed amongst the pack who 11.11 pauper industries. We say| pauper industries because they are re-* ceiving "help from the taxpayers of the country to enable ‘them to get enough to live upon, at least, that is the story they tell; in other words, they are‘ protected industries. These protectedl individuals get, through their cunning! iirmnoeuvringx the \farmers’ wool at fourteenpence, and if the farmer wants 1; it back in the form of Mosgiel singlet ’ and pants, he pays twenty shillings a pound for it; who is exploiting-. 3 The” farmer sells his hides at an altogether inadequate price, and is asked to pay! fierty shillings for a decent pair of‘ boots made from them. The farmer, after paying for high-priced land, sheep, labour, eve,':yth'ing in meat-r.:3is— ‘ ing, gets a third of whats the para-i sites on his industry sells it to the consumers for, and so it will be seen how farmers and cOnsunTers are being taxed to keep in existence huge concerns for! their exploitation. There is another. alarming aspect from the farmers’ point of view; with the outrageous profiteering proclivities of the protected leeches on production, f.armers have been forced into paying higher wages; but if it ended there it would not be so distressing. To collect the taxes those protected parasites on production need to enable them to continue profiteering, huge 'tax~eollecting machinery is necc-ssarv, and the volume of taxes has to be increased to meet the everincreasing high salaries that the men comprising this machinery are 133“So keen have the tax-collecting Slcuill-i hounds become. urged on by Govern-I ment. lash, that efforts are actually made to extort more than the complete article cost to ‘produce. If those en-I gaged in primary production will inquire exhaustively into this taxation as it affects them, they will not rest until something more just and less ma:st‘cful. is substituted. They will most assuredly -record so emphatic a protest against protected industries as will be commensurate with their disgust of the whole protection dirty busi-

|ness. With the growth of taxation, lthcre i's a corresponding increase of the tax-collecting machinery, and ‘the lhigher wages are boosted, the more .-does the farmer have to pay at both 1 ends —— more for labour and more for taxation, and tax-collccting—-but is he allowed to enter the open market with his wares‘? The farnler is between trusts and combines, and the -audacious, profiteering protected industries in his own country. We, ask faarmerg whether, when the prices of their products -go; below a satisfactory remunerative level, Boards of Trade, Trade Commissioners, and Government will consent to a tax being levied to make up the shortage, as is done in connection with Woollen industries, boot factories and with all other m-anufacturi'ng concerns ulsing the raw mlazterial the farmer produces? By their exo-rbitance and unnatural greed, protected industries have forfeited all consideration by the people. They have conclusively shown, satisfactorily proved to the people that no protective duty is needed; that they are quite able to do much a’n"6're than look after their pro-fit-making. At the expense of New Zealanders, Woollen factories have been clothing the people . of other nations, and now We learn that, ? although. the people of this country a-re taxed to keep boot factories in existence, to charge 100 per cent more ‘for boots than, the price of hides warrant, those boot factory owners propose pocketing the amount protection in this country allows them, and then ' leave them with no boots, or still high-er-priced boots, while they send them to cover the feet of the Germans in Europe. Farmers will doubtlessly note how those protected woollen and boot people, who buy their wool and hides at a fixed price, raved and cursed against the greed and lust of ‘Germany, and with what depth of honesty and {sincerity they vowed that never again 'WOllld German relationship be tolerat[cd. They decry and anéithematise “trusts and conlb'ines, While trying to out-trust the trusts and out-combine the combines. The great question is, [will producers and people ever again Fprop up such manufacturing and trading with taxation that‘-is so ‘wickedly lrnis-applied‘? Traders -and politicians ‘have hith'erto',dee'eived producers by »_making them believe that increasing income tax on7busi¥ness and trade will re- , licve them, but farmers are now realis- , ing the fact that they produce all the money, «and -that Whatever stage of its , passing money is taxed at, it is the pmoncy they produced. ' They also “notice that the men politicians threat- ‘ on to tax most constitutes the classi from Whenceallg millionaires come, Iti would be refreshing to have a bona fide millionaire farmer: such a rara avis‘ would indeed be a curiosity, and yet it i is from the riches of land millionaires are made. Broadly, there are two classes of producer, the fiarmcrWll-ofur- i nishes the essential necessity to human 1 existence, and the minor, who t‘:-.kos minerals from,the earth, and converts them into articlcsfor the use or for-,the i destruction of .hu'_man life. ‘lt is fromi ’rhe,..lcss essential production that r_uil- I lionaires come.‘ The mineral man converts his iron, "with the aid of Govern- I ment subsidy, bonus, or protective du-I ty, into what the World requires, but,‘ strange to say, the trading p.art of this i production is in no way restricted re—' garding what profits he shall extort, and hence are evolved trusts that dominate the world» by the money they, are ‘allowed to dishonestly-accumulate. ‘ Why discriminate against the producer’ of the first essential of life by limiting his profits? It is not from his class I millionaires come, and it is not thel farmer who has formed trusts and combines for exploiting the people; they have to take what remuneration Govcrnmcnt. chiefly composed" of the protected classes. arbitrarily fixes for them. The time is opportune for! farmers to look into the whole ta.\'a—i tion, remuneration, and price o_uoStion,]