The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1920. “SAILING ON SUMMER SEAS.”

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 3608, 21 October 1920, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1920. “SAILING ON SUMMER SEAS.”

( With which is incorporated i “The Taihape Post and Waimarino j Newß,” j

In his remarks upon the financial situation, as disclosed In the s.ump 1 of consols and in every department Of the British Stock Exchange, Mr Harold Beauchamp, chairman of the Bank of New Zealand, is reported to have stated that, "ever since the commandeer of our principal primary products by the Imperial Government we have been sailing bn summer seas.” There is cause to wonder who the “we” are for whom Mr Beauchamp speaks. Does he refer to the Bank, the Government, or the principal primary producers, for he surely cannot have in mind the great masses of me people? Has the Chairman of the Bank of New Zealand not read in his daily newspaper about shortage ot houses, shortage of butter, shortage of sugar, shortage of clothing, in fact, shortage of everything whereby He pepole live? No doubt he read about all these shortages but like Members of the Government, he saw no evrdence of them; there was always plenty and to spare in his establishment, and, of course, he could not have that fellow feeling that some'times begets a wondrous kindness. We can point Mr Beauchamp to many cases of men sailing on alarmingly tempestuous seas in the bitterest winter of their discontent. Primary producers have earned a fair living but ■what, were they able to 'spend their surplus cash upon? They wanted fencing wire, fertilisers and 1a long list of essentials to progressive modern farming; they also wanted labour in the same connection, hut such things were not "purchasable. Their surplus earnings went into the Bank, creating that "summer sea” idea that the Bank Chairman about ana really thinks that it exists. Is •there not to wonder whether Bank Chairmen and Members ,of , the Gov-

eminent been for over two months, middle of winter, without one ounce of coal in their homes, or establishments? If that experience had been shared by Mr Beauchamp' he would not refer to such conditions as "sailing on summer seas.” We can assure the man who has heen “sailing on summer seas.” that many pepole would have heenglad to tap the depths of hades, hs& it been possible, to., thereby secure a supply of something to warm them, and wherewith t 5 cook their food. But Mr Beauchanlp is only furnishing another proof of the truth of the old axiom that one half of the people do , hot know how the other half lives. The “summer seas”'of many farmers

in this district are badly infested with sharks of a most voracious character, as well as of countless derelict institutions and organisations which fasten upon the farmer’s (•‘cockle shell” and suck the last vitamine out of it, as well as out of its cargo ,of fanner. If he escapes from the shark he is beset by either the i octopus or the Government, the latter proving no mean snag to get past • Does not Mr Beauchamp’s opinions [indicate that he has in mind the few vulture farmers who have been farming the farmers? The men who have

sold the farmers’ produce to the imperial Government knowing that it would ruin his market, leave him at the end of the commandeer marketless and with slumping prices for his 1 i meat and wool, an easy prey to trie jshoal of shark trusts that are waifng |to rid the summer sea of his tiny 1 cockle shell? The masses of the peoIple did have a footing of their own from whence they could get a whiff 1 of the breeze from off the summer sea, j but the Government seems determined ,to sell the last inch of public endow'ment land, rendering the right of the ! masses under an obligation to the ■ lords of the land for space to live and. walk upon. Mr Beauchamp has a time green in his memory wnon j the Bank of New Zealand thought it was “sailing upon summer ’seas,-

while it, drifted within a shave of becoming a total wreck, and was only salved by all the powers of the State being brought into action to tow it off the rocks and anchor, it out of the stormy danger zone. It was a salutary lesson, but even from the Bank point of view, it is difficult to imagine the summer seas idea expressed by the Bank’s Chairman. We see little else than a sea of unrest with frequent tempests which occasionally swallow Up labouring country newspapers, and other industries; their wreck being chiefly due to the hundreds per cent of taxation with which the Government has unmercifully loaded them; tempests' that make

coal unprocurable, that make it impracticable to get butter, sugar, bacon and other little incidentals to human ilife, within reach of the people; lempiests that are actually driving many of the farmers who are supposed fo be drifting to fortune on -summer seas to the very verge of the whirlpool of despair Hopes were raised in the past, that are not going to materialise in gratification, and that future is all sleet and mist, which is not dense { fog. Mr Beauchamp is optimistic jbeyond reasonable dictates of caujtion; he is evidently obsessed with a hope that the summer seas the Bank is sailing in may not become tempestuous, the atmosphere thick and cloudy, that the thick black bank of j clouds in the distance will not spread ■ like a heavy pall over the summer,sea jhe is sailing upon, and finally lash ■ his bark into the common wreckage which some people are prophesying as la result of abandoned profiteering land the unreasonableness of extreme j labour May it not well be asked, are {the people of this country benefit! Ing jby experience of the past, Is the {struggle for improvement a struggle !for the good of the whole or for betterment of conditions for the few only? John Milton ha.s Written that “the end of learning is to repair the ruin of our first parents, by regaining to know God aright.” And in this connection God stands for the highest and best civilisation man is now capfable of conceiving, or ever will be capjable of conceiving. It is the cruellest [irony to talk to the people of this Hojminion about “sailing on summer seas.” People are despairing of ever [again getting a glimpse of those sumliner seas upon which mankind could sail .with a oneness or reeling for tire common good and for common happiness. The end of Government at this stage of development of, civilisation is to enact laws for the encouragement of ruin, for giving opportunity for every man to raise his hand against his fellowmen. The trend of laws is to make worse w the condition of the weak and render all-powerful the strong. But even the powerful and strong, cannot fearlessly embark upon summer seas, for they are haunted with visions of bombs that may wreck their crafts despite their strength and the richness of their fittings. A bank in New Zealand is no more immune from the hand of the wrecker than is the Wall Street financial palace of aJ. IP. Morgan. Our |-summer seas are not placid, their sur-

'face is lashed into foam whth the voracity of trust sharks, and, their shores are a continuous line of octopi lying in wait to destroy and consume that they may grow to prodigious dimensions. If ever ‘ f Sunrmer are. discovered it will tyi/ into the future, and wjia£ Mr Beau6isimp mis- [ takes for “Summef is merely a parlour comfort which may to a rude ending any moment'* This' Dominion will; pot embark upon “Summer Seas’' until extremism oT every character is rendered impracticable,