The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE THURSDAY, DEC. 11, 1919. THE ULTIMATE OF PROFITEERING.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3359, 11 December 1919, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

THURSDAY, DEC. 11, 1919. THE ULTIMATE OF PROFITEERING.

With which is incorporated “The T&.ihape Post and Waimarino News.”

v The influence of commercialism in stemming the progress of civilisation is strongly in evidence in America today. i The Anleriean"peop-let-could -only agree amongst themselves ,to._.eu-ter: the war onuthe side of the Adlies_wheu the cause of th Allies’lp_oked almost hope.less, and after taking part in the war their influence was. used to stop the fighting before the German Army was completely e:onquered. Now we see the truth ‘forced upon the.’ Allies that America is loth to end 1; state of war, and ordinary citizen? of variousAllied countries are wondering why. F9r~thr_¢<.2 years w,h.ile,tlye..Allies were ‘l‘l'gllting:foi' the existencefiof America, as well as for them-selves,_.co-mmercial: ism: in ""America-- saw; its ‘-opportunity; while the war was destroying the manhood 'of_:' Bl_=itain,,,sA,llleriea was'= -selling war requisites to England at 3,-price that amounted to rob,bery,;, while Germans" were-threatening Britain with fire and sword, pro-Germans in .{Xnlerica were threatening Britain ‘with a commercialism hitherto unprecedented. Britons thought the help of America was prompted by friendship, by race relationship; Britons cannot very well think that to-day.‘ .The outstanding fact 110 w seems to be that-commercial-ism has conquered ‘more than the sword amongst civilised peoples; it has monopolised and cornered until civilised men. and women, we are told, are. reduced to eating human flesh, to cannibalism. Where is commercialism leading the whole world and its civilisation to? To soc.ial destruction, revo, lution, ending in can.niba.lism. Ameri-i cans have not only charged Britain, in her necessity_, hundreds per cent, but since tthose ,hun*dredls« per ‘cent ceased, has decreed through the machinery and dark alleys of commercialism made Britain’s ‘pound sterling worth only sixteen shillings, there by increasing Britains’ debt to Alner~ ica by millions of pounds for which absiolutely no value is given. "I.‘h;lt pro. cess is the highest class of profiteering; it is not called profi’tecrin.g, but merely adjustment of exchange rates. When the unfortunate housewife is made to pay by dishonest traders twice the price that ought to be charged, she calls it robbery or profl"§eering, but it is merely, an adjustment of rates of exchange. Nations, as well as corporations and indiviudals indulge in profiteering just as often as opportunity otfers, and no greater crime -of commercialism can be conceived than that which Americans are perpetrating in keepingthe world at war merely that they may still go on raking in the almighty dollar, even though they do it over the dead bodies of starved men, women, and children in other‘ countries. Where are -the sickly ideals boasted of in entering the 'Wars The , same ideals fare ngw keeping 'the world at war. America rushed into A the European war and maimed Germany with the sword, an.d shackled the Allies with commercialism, then American soldiers were removed back to America, to a place .-of safety, to where it costs nothing to keep them, but has Anieric-a continued the undertakings, -the agree: ments that Americans had more t0..d0 ‘in bringing about than any other.

lnation? No! The American army and the American navy left just as suddenly as they came; left Britain to bear the brunt of washing up, and to lpay America .":ml't.rageoug -priges ,for what was required to feed and rehabi-‘ litate suffering peoples. ‘When V,‘-the time came to put into practice American ideals those ideals had been swapped for others; the love of humanity and civilisation had been changed for commercialism and the almighty dollar. Americans do not Want" the Peace Treaty, nor the League of Nations; ‘those things are of no service in dollar-‘making; Americans wantwar, and they want nations to: remain divided and at variance, until those warring nations have passed over the whole of their Wealth ‘to America, and are reduced -t‘6,ea-ting human fleshcating each other. Britain and France have conquered a menac.e to civilisation, but American. commercialism has ' the conquerors at its mercy, and what ‘is the quality of that mercy? Americans are determined to subdue -the world by commercialism, as Germany ‘might have done had it not been for the jealousy of Prussian militarism. There is nothing clever in c.ommercialism; it is merely a system of legalised crime; an unprecedented audacity begat ofthe lowest instincts in man;-i-t is admittedly borrowed from the brute, and in using it man is levelling him‘self down to the brute, hence we find all the higher human instincts, cvid enced by the decadency of art, poetry, and statesmanship, are being offered |up a sacrifice to the modern golden ‘calf. Devotees of comme-rcialisni frankly state that their corporations lhave neither sympathy or conscience; that it is a fight to the death with them; that as it is with the brutekind so it is with the human kind, and they pursue their profiteering heedless of what hiiinan death or cannibalism may result therefrom. They draw their only inspiration from the cold iforces of nature, bringing humanity down to the level 0/1‘ the -very rock from which it is said to -have come. The great temple of this new religion‘ ‘is in America, its high priests are found in American trusts and combines, and its missionaries are bringing to ruin all society and all nations. Th_ese high priests are against signing Peace Terms, and the League of Nations they abhor only because the stoppage of, war, and the establishment of a ‘means! for maintaining perinanent‘ ' peace would limit theiif orgyoflconimercial-" sim; stop ‘their robbery ‘of the dead,’ ‘dying, and. ' emacia_ted'_‘ peoples‘ in I Europe; dam the streamspof gold -that . are flowing from the c_ountries where! people have been reduced‘,byAcommercialism to [eating each 'bther;—eating human flesh. Truly." it‘/"-is ' pitiable, humiliating, to find in" New Zealand spurious statesmen w.hjo,fdn_ring— a gen-' eral election, are soA‘ig'n'orant. of econ-l omic ‘laws as .to fiacpfulally 'p.ubli<_3~ly'i apologise :for profiteers‘ andmconimer-| coialism‘; To hades, they say, witl_l._' all discretion and all fthouglit oft wllat¥ -may be the punishment for our sins against humanity, but will it not come . this little coun’t‘ry’s turn, to be drawn wholly into the-nraw of the new god of commercialism when the power of its high priests is augmented by thel destruction of its present victinls'.?l Rightgpr wrong, from the ethical view. 3 point, we will, they say, pursue our pro-fiteering, plunder, and starvation; our cult has no conscience; no. human sympathy; we are no better than the brutcs who devour each other‘; war favours our systematic robbery and our hideous methods of murder, and We will not ‘sign any Peace Treaties, norl will we allow any ~Le'a.gue of Na'flOTlS to be established to prevent war in the future. Our commercialism, they Say,‘ can only succeed by its processes of cornering food till ten times its natural value can be extorteclfrom starving people who must have it or. die; it is essential that we should: cunningly foment wars; that we should I avoid any semblance of peace until our eommercia.lisnl is in jeopardy of being drawn into the vertex of that destruction which it has engineered for purposes of robbery on a scale ‘the people, of the world have not yet ‘thecommon sense Ito see the enormity andl -the destrnctiveness of. New Zealand-' ers have the nlol'tifyin.g cxApOI‘iCIICO Of having to listen to so~called statesmen apologising for -the systems and Pl‘3o'| UCCS Of pl_‘ofiteering, otherwise com-i mer-cialism. The insinuating influence‘ of the trust high,priest”s -of this modern god, who delights to see humans eating l human flesh Whileithey enjoy giving banquets to pet dogs, the cost of which a.£tll'.llly runs into many thousands Of pounds. Let the people of this little, CoTller of the British Empire note] ‘Vhat'is taking place in America, let‘ tliém weigh well the cost of becoming} the Sl3tVos of American commercialism, I and get a realisation of the fact that their EmPil‘e 'stands in danger from fll.,&t. commerciulismmore t.llan it does from any threat of war, even though that threat be from the yellow people of the Far East, for it cannot be denied: t““tl7'filll.l‘.- that the Anglo-Saxon race, as weil as all western people,l 3113 Ilot being enervated, emaciated,l and enfeeblcd, militarily. socially, andindustrially from -the example the _higll'priests ofeommercialisni are set ting, and from the doctrine of dishonest trade they lare inculcating.‘ ,