The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE. THURSDAY, FTBRUARY 5, 1920. AN UNSATISFACTORY WOOL DEAL.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3402, 5 February 1920, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE.

THURSDAY, FTBRUARY 5, 1920. AN UNSATISFACTORY WOOL DEAL.

With which is incorpora tev “The Taihape, Poet and Waimarino News. ,; .

The meagre progress of settlement in this Dominion indicating that there can be little or no increase in the production of meat and wool, farmers must, if only in their own interests, cease to be bamboozled and humbugged into constituting themselves a body of Empire philanthropists. If a greater volume of products is not attainable it then becomes necessary to cease selling at ridiculously low ' prices, and search for the market where more money is readily offering for what can be produced. The truth about the unsatisfactory returns farmers have received are not denied in any quarter, but in these days of commercialism no credit is given for sentiment, for patriotism, and a New Zealand newspaper—The Sun—tells farmers plainly that they have a twenty per cent, of shame that profiteering on their products is rampant, and fifty per cent, of disappointment that they have 'been virtuous for nothing. This same newspaper tells woolgrowers, upon whose wool thousands per cent, of profit is being made, that their moth-eaten morality leads them to think their hearts are bleeding for war injured women and children when it is only throbbing with vexation because all the profits on their wool has gone to the “other fellow.” Not gone to war widows and children; not gone to maimed men; not gone to the producer, nor the public, but gone to the “other fellow.” In other words, the "other fellow” is simply laughing at them for being such fools as to allow OTelr wool to be taken from them at a price not in accordance with honest trading, nor on a par with fair values. Those engaged in production, and also all those who naturally feel concern for safety in the future are glad to have any information about the money that is due to New Zealand for wool, and if the statement made by the Premier on Tuesday is a long way from being

encouraging and satisfactory it is nevertheless welcome, as it helps towards an elucidation of the subject, if not an understanding. It is not a statement that one would expect from an advocate of New. Zealand’s best interests, it appeals to us as an excuse for the mean way New Zealand has been treated, another chapter added to that published by the Christchurch Sun. Mr Massey is preparing wool growers for a remuneration very much less than authentic reports of profits indicate as being fair, and he now tells them that Allied Governments were (in the arrangements for New Zealand cheap wool, so that it is not only our own people that should benefit, but half Europe has been enjoying the advantage accruing from wool at fifteenpence that is worth from sixty to one hundred pence. Worse still, we are told, this wool distribution amongst the Allied partnership is of such “great magnitude and the difficulties so accentuated.” that no account sales are obtainable, and the money is not forthcoming. The Premier gives his assurance that he will do his utmost to push it along, but assurances do not pay land and income taxes, nor break in land for increase of production. His statement amounts to a flat contradiction of , what the Controller of Raw 1 Materials in Britain has stated, and what Mr McKinder, a member of the

Wool Investigation Committee offif cially said about from four hundred to three thousand per cent, profit being made out of wool handling, and 'about the British Government having made some sixty millions profit. Mr Massey may be right and the British ’ officials wrong; if he is fanners will not have very much to receive. We ’ have not considered the figures worth analysis, but roughly Mr Massey’s ; quotations from sale catalogues indicate that wool was sold last year, in London, at prices over fifty per cent, above New Zealand valuations. A great deal of trouble and care has been taken hy someone in showing the margin over and above the estimated value, and, as we have said, there will be very little left from those margins when Brokers’ charges for cataloguing, stacking, etc.; Valuers’ expenses, storage, delivery charges to F. 0.8. insurance (fire, marine and war risk), ocean freight, landing, dock charges and storage at destination, sale and delivery charges in London interest on purchase cost, etc., etc. What the total of the charges in this formidable list amount to lin these days of rampant profiteering, no ordinary person can guess, but, as the Premier remarks, they run } into a considerable amount per pound.

In fact we shall be surprised if tE£ fifty, or over, per cent, margin, Mr Massey hasi shown from sale catalogues, is not more than exhausted, and a loss shown on those particular sales (he has quoted. There is little doubt about the statement being intended to fix in the mind of woolgrowers more moderate ideas and estimates of the amount they are likely to receive in the way of surplus profits, and in this Mr Massey may be rendering good service. It must not be supposed that the profit mentioned by British officials referred chiefly to what was being made from raw wool. Profits made by the British Government would be from sales of wool as

(imported, which are said to he some sixty millions on wool from Australasia. hut the four hundred and three thousand per cents, are profits be tween spinners and manufacturers. Spinners have paid the sale price as quoted by the Premier, they have converted the wool'into yarn, and held lit from manufacture till mill-owners paid"' them just what price they thought it honest to exact. There is little doubt that our Premier has been requested to make the statement published in another column, which everyone interested must recognise ,as filling- the dual purpose of explanation and apology. It in fio way alters the fact that spinners have been deliberately robbing the wool con-'

sumer, or the wool grower, or both, and it is very difficult to see how the British Government, and perhaps, our own Government, can clear itself of responsibility for permitting such outrageous plundering to continue, more especially as the plunderers constitute a class composed of parasites on those who were fighting, and working, and spending, and giving to bring ' the war to a victorious conclusion. The tenor of

the explanation arouses some suspicion; we do not like the incidental intelligence that the money due, be it much or Mtle ,is to be paid to farmers by instalments. We think a more just and businesslike procedure would be to have account sales made out, profits adjusted, and New Zealanders notified at once what they can build upon receiving; we do not like the/‘tontine system” aspect of the situation, it is most objectionable besides being misleading and unjust. Farmers are not responsible for the inter-Allied partnership entered into, nor for any difficulties the woolpurcnasing Government may have m collecting from other Govern-

ments'; the purchaser is liable to the i seller, and the debt is now long overdue. New Zealand farmers have been dubbed fools by, the profiteering gang for their generous expression of patriotism, and it is time they now insisted upon payment of what is actually due to them. , They have placed themselves, trustingly, in the hands of the British Government, giving it carte 'blanche to sell tlheir wool at what price they pleased, and to adjust their share of the profits, but they can neither learn what the price received was. or what the pro-

fits were, and they are coolly told that when there is any prospect oT money being available they must take payment by instalments. We hope they will not feel chagrined if they are told in bankruptcy parlance that the second and final dividend” is very much below what they had reason to expect would be due to them, and forthcoming. Wo dislike the tontine method of payment, for some may indeed have passed west before payment of their wool is completed.