The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1919. MEAT COMMANDEER EXTENSION.

Taihape Daily Times, 22 September 1919, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1919. MEAT COMMANDEER EXTENSION.

With which is incorporated “The Taihape Post: and Waimarino News.”

The Prime Minister, at what looked like a bit of superficially arranged by. > play, attended the last minutes of the I Farmers’ Conference. and advised farmer s that the shipping situation was | hopeless and that nothing better was in sight than to renew the meat commandeer* for another year. Only a few ! weeks ago farmers were going the [ length of demanding cancellation of [ meat requisition by the Imperial Gov--1 ernment, last week-end Mr Massey at- | tended for a few minutes and told the farmers the only think.'they could do was ito renew the commandeer, and they cheered him and sang, “He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.” Well may one .ask what there is in politics for some people, for when farmers can be persuaded to go on selling their meat at a few pence per pound, while they, by all laws of right, wrong, .and common understanding, should; be receiving (twice the amount, they surely are as pliant in the hands of the politician as thenown sheep are in theirs. It is true that all New Zealand-owned ships have been sold to the great combine, and that they are now carrying trust meat from America to Europ 0 c; also 'that at the present moment there seems no hope of getting any meat away unless they more deeply involve themselves in trust control by appealing for an extension of the commandeer; while their meat, by being so long kept oft' the market, enables the trust to completely control the selling end. Farmers in New Zealand have been deprived of their ships and they arc now under the process of being robbed of their markets, what must the natural sequence be? With only a reasonable supply of shipping farmers would have been able to subscribe all the loan money the State needs, and still remain in a far better position than they are in to-day. While a Government stands j by permitting an island country to sell all its ships, and takes absolutely no other course of getting their surplus produce off the island, surely it can be deemed nothing else than attempted suicide. Is it not a fact that the trust hoodwinked a short-witted, credulous Government into believing that they would sec that there were ample ships, and that there was no need whatever for New Zealand to waste its meney in buying ships of its own? If this is not the case, how is it that fanners are on One side of the river with their congested stores, their meat, developing ”black spot,” with neither boat, raft, rope, Or rod to enable them to get across to where their 1 markets used to be; to Berlin, where cablegrams tell them that meat is now down to nine shillings a pound. Is it the meat from New Zealand farmers that is fetching nine shillings a pound? No; they, by the foolishness of their simple politicians, are not receiving more than half the number of pence per pound, and they cannot even get that ■ because their meat is side-tracked in stores while trust meat fills all the nine shillings a pound demand. The President of the New Zealand Farmers’ i Conference said, in his opening address, tha't shortage of shipping was the most serious difficulty farmers had to contend with; Mr Massey, at the end of the Conference, told the Conference that if all the ships they could reasonably hope Tor came for meat there ivculd still be ten and a-half millions if carcases of mutton in store. Is it tot apparent that the country is drift- . ng from bad to worse? , The only saviour of the farmers Mr Massey points to £fir Walter Buchanan, but surely there are still Wld farmers living who have all the experience they want of Sir Walter Buchanan as a friend of the farmer. Mr Buchanan has earned an undying reputation for the side he took with meat shippers, reducing farmers (Jo

having t 0 erect-boiliiigxiown works as a more profitable way of selling their stock than let it get into the hands of b the mea't-shippers -of the \Valter Bu--011311311 ilk. The Wairarapa Becthams Came T 0 the aid of farmers in those earlier days of meat-shipping‘; are there not such patriots who will stand out for the saving of the farming industry today? More Ithan one sigh of despair Went out at =the Farmers’ Conference from men of honest i”n:t’ent.; those men realised that they had -been led into a trap‘ from which there was no apparent outlet. Who- can state that this Dominion ’s meat trade has .- not got into the ll1?aI1ldS of parasites l on farmers? "Last year the pliant tools of the“parasites told farmers to continue !the eonnnandeer another year, till stores are practically empty; Mr Massey told the same’ old story to farmers in conference last Friday, but what is the situation? Stores are more congested than ever -before, and the out- I look is hopeless. In one breath Mr»! Massey told farmers to continue the] comnrandeer for another year, “till stores are praeffically empty, andl till shipping is normal,” and in the next breath he told them that at the end of that year “there would be ten and ahalf nl’l"l*li6'ns of carcases still in store in this country.” Mr Massey painted the blaekest of pictures of the future; ‘ after advising -the conimandeer for an— ’ other year, till the stores are empty “and -shipping .is Ironmab, the (stated: "It looks, with lthe big congestion of: Imeat, WOO=l, and otherlgoods, matters! , are not going’ to be too bright for the j ‘coming season.” All the hope ' he ~ offers is in ’ trying to get the Home Government to take our products at What they feel disposed to pay forit. We can only regard it as plausible hunrbug to say, t.ha.'t; “extension of the coin-rnlandeer{ would case the shipping position, and, that, by the end of the year stores would -be empty,” while in the nextt breath it is shown pretty conclusively that stores will be con‘g'e'slted more than ever they were. Is this another case of Mr Massey being wrongly reported, or is it an ind-ication that farmers should distinguish the danger signal so unintentionally -displayed‘? By exten~ sion of the commandeer coinmon—'sense[ determines ‘that st‘o’resi'iwill‘ be either full or empty at the*'end"-of the year,l but Mr Massey’ seeins to indicator that they will be both‘ full= and empty. What - l ever .is intended, it ‘is ' plain lthatil through .mismanag_em'ent the meattrade . is dominated "by the trust, and the most pressing interests of farmers lies in shaking off the condiltions that. per~ { niitted their meat. to become so en-, meshed; they are, indeed. -blessed, org cursed, with aV. superabundance 'of creduli‘t_v if they believe that theirl stores are going to be emptied while the ‘high prices for meat are ruling on the Continent, and so long as the meat trust can prevent. it. There is only one sure way to keep New Zealand trade for NewZealandcrs_. and that way lies through their own shipping to take their own products to market; ,why should the trust trouble. about produce,‘ belonging to New Zealanders being goti to market, While that niarket is wanted I f-or‘America,n meat‘? The man who expects anything of that kind is lacking in business «tense. Will the Home Government force New Zealand fermers into a cominandecr by shortage of shipping, When meat in Europe drops to. about 'tenpence a pound retail? l