The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE. WEDNESDAY, DEC. 1, 1920. A CHECK TO PROFITEERING

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 3642, 1 December 1920, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE.

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 1, 1920. A CHECK TO PROFITEERING

With which ia incorporated “The Taihape Post and Waimarino News ”

Two Wellington firms have been ■.convicted and fined for profiteering on 'tweeds; one was fined tiiree hundred ’.pounds ajtd ithe other four hundred pounds. In themselves the fines are a mere nothing ,from the penalty point of view, for either firm has only to sell a comparatively small quantity of similar material at a similar price and the fine is paid. The convictions Co indicate, 'however, that the Government is now aware that it is due solely to such profiteering that the country is threatened with industrial ana social upheaval. Had there been no profiteering there could have been no reasonable or just claim for such wages by workers as constitute something more than can be earned in the gross. The profiteer has much to answer for, and if the recent convictions and fines do not serve as a deterrent • to wholesale plundering of the people it is safe to predict that still stronger measures and still heavier fines will be inflicted. For, of course, by the risk of being fined a hundred pounds profiteering firms have netted tens of thousands —probably hundreds of thousands of pounds —in dishonest profits. The Government has permitted this discreditable, this loathsome, dangerous system of destructive trading to continue for years in face o? the impossible living conditions Its was so Obviously producing. The time for calling a halt is not until the whole mass of the body politic Is in'flamed to, questionably, beyond recovery. Governments throughout tne 'Empire have given the hideous commercialism of the present day a free course, and it is fast running itself and the Empire to destruction. . In England the writing is on the wall in the form of barricades and protections of Parliament and Downing Street. Who are the Government protecting themselves against? Is it not mere shame to pretend that all England as well as all Ireland is Sinn Fein? The plain fact is that the governed throughout the country are up in arms against the Government. By an unbridled, unchecked commcrcial-ist-frenzy the wealth of the Empire has been collected into a few hands; into the possession of mejn who are trying to bring about peace by starving the masses into subjection, instead of by adopting the oldtime Ijonest methods of trading, and by putting the money into circulation in essential industries, keeping the people’ remuneratively employed. They shortsightedly continue their profiteering | in spite of convictions and fines; the I accumulators of the world’s wealth I

continue their starvation processes, turning hundreds of thousands into trie streets, with nothing else to do but to confer with a view to wreatcing vengeance upon their oppressors and enemies. It is very plain that the conditions of the people can undergo no improvement until traders are made honest by fear of the law, and as the pressure of commercialism is increasingly felt by small businessmen and small farmers there is a growing tendency for the people to commence challenging the attitude of their Government in standing behind dishonest and dangerous money accumulating. The Now Zealand Government has made a commencement in a task they have allowed to grow beyond their control. The ponderousness of profiteering has virtually become a Juggernaut rolling over the people rendering them houseless, and with a shortage of the necessaries of life, not saying anything about luxuries. If the convictions, and fines inflicted in the Wellington Magistrate’s Court this week are a depmlable earnest of what Government intentions are in the cost of living problem there will rapidly be improvement, socially and industrial-

ly. Instead of the people being constantly tempted to join issue with the oppressed and discontents, they will gradually drift over to the Government that is, without a shadow of pretence, honestly trying to bring about better conditions by peaceful methods. There seems to he no soi> tjiiis realisation of the housing trouble. ,1 For its own sake, for the people's and the sake we do hope that the Government has not become obsessed with the idea that the masses of workers are settling down to a veritable pig stye life. They-are arot, and conditions have now become so complex that it b not easy to determine bow best to go about solving the problem. Two -months ago a widow woman had decided to put al hexworldly wealth into building a house for herself and daughter; plans were submitted, a price given, but before monetary arran'gemnts had been made, enabling cash to be paid to the builder the price bad grown (from sixteen hundred pounds to two thousand pounds and the widow has still an unoccupied section and, it seems is likely to have for some indeterminate per--iod if she floes not sell it. By the carte blanche given to profiteers and ) profiteering the housing problem is | rapidly becoming impossible of solution. Nobody now believes in the Government having any honesty of purpose and many are becoming recKless in consequence. Higher costs or living are the basis of demands for higher wages, and higher wages are in- ■ creasing the costs of buildings beyond the limits of the power of the people to buy them or pay the rent that nas to be demanded as a reasonable inter’est ,on the capital involved .in laud and construction. The great army of lower paid workers cannot have houses simply because the rent they could pay is insufficient to inauce capital being spent in building them. So far as the housing problem is in question the much talked about vicious circle has become inoperative; » climax has been reached; housing equations’ are irreconcilable, and itdocs not need a very shrewd guess to see that increasing discontent, and increasing alienation "and disaffection of the masses can only result. The fines of a few hundred pounds may bring about a cheapening of clothing, bin there is to be comprehensive courses taken with every class and section of profiteers if cost of living is to be brought down to permit a living * wage to workers that industries 'can pay. It is beyond every shadow or doubt that many industries must close down if the means of human subsistence are not made more readily accessible. A disinclination is shown by members of freezing works unions to accept conditions of pay now current; bow are farmers to go on increastng wages while the market for their meat and wool is tumbling about their ears? Is it not plain that nothing but a return to honest trading, forsaking the ways of evil profiteering, together with the adoption of a reasonable attitude by workers, will open up an avenue to a peaceful solution of the industrial and social difficulties which at present are too heavy a load tor this young country to carry?