The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1920. TRADING WITH ALIENS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 3643, 2 December 1920, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1920. TRADING WITH ALIENS.

With which ia incorporated “The Talhape Post and Wahnarino News ”

The Americans are exhibiting considerable jealousy about BritaMs determination to open up trading^ relationship witii Hussia. Americans, in their impulsive, ostentatious way, would have nothing to do with the Soviet; but now that Britain sees <no way out of the world shortage difficulty but by trading with all nationa, brother Jonathan is scheming for a Temedy for his impulsiveness. Britain must have nothing that Jonathan has not an equal, share in; he longs for, and suggests that he will fight, for a share in but he draws the line at touching an .onless country such as Armenia. The humaneness of Americans in oppressed and helpless Armenia vanishes in presence of the oil riches in an adjoining country. American actions give the lie to American protestations in Asia, and it is doubtful whether anything different obtains elsewhere. Americans professed to be fighting for a principle but it is undeniable that the Almighty dollar occupies a high perch in that principle. While Americans will accept no part in rehabilitating peoples who are not likely to be useful from a trading point • of view, . they? want ancj, are angling to rule the roost in parts- of Asia where an American soldier never put a foot, simply because there are trading possibilities ] of an alluring character. Obviously 1 Americans are after making dollars as a result of their little belated fight in Prance, not in : spending them ' in bringing back to h'ealth a crushed people. Americans are now agitating for an extension of credit to Germany. As was remarked in these columns recently, Germany could buy all New , Zealand's wool and meat at high prices, and Germans would be very thankful of such an opportunity, but shortage of money is fatal to Gorman hopes and dreams in that connection. Farmers in America seem to be more active in their own interests tlian Australasian farmers are in theirs; they are agitating for a huge extension of credit to the Germans, based on the value, of alien property in America, Cannot New Zealand farmers unearth alien property in this Dominion as the basis of an agitation to the Government for an extension 01 credit to Germany that will permit Germans to take every bale of wool they cannot, sell in New Zealand? At least a hundred or two- more per cent, could be got from Germany for the wool that is now virtually unsaleable; but Britishers are not so keen after the other party's dollars as the Americans are. Because there is only sixpence a pound in the old wool\buyingr rut, Neiw Zealand farmers are persuaded by the people who are squeezing them that it is that or nothing; there is no other way out. It'seems that the American farmers are.not so easily persuaded; they see two or three shillings a pound for their wool in Germany if only a means of credit can be made possible;, are not precisely similar chances on offer to New Zealand farmers? To the Americans the Soviet is anathema, but not so anything pertaining to the world's late enemy. They are iosing neither time nor opportunity to open up tracing relationship with Germany, even to the extent of organising extended credit in Germany's interests. Commercialism has so got producers sn various parts of the world by the wool' that they cannot sell where they please, simply because close communication and transport is denied to them. There are indications that if New Zealand wool were down to one penny per pound there woxild be obstacles in the way of selling it to Germany if the Germans would give two shillings a pound for it. We metan that trade is not conducted in the interests of the men who grow and produce the articles trader with; the grower and the consumer arei, under modern commercialism, mere cyphers'; they exist to be shifted before or after figures at the will of the middleman, the only controlling motive being to put a pound into the pockets of traders for every shilling going to the producer. It is not trade, but exploitation of the most ruthless character. Whatever happens to New Zealand products growers may rest assured that commercialist. kings will move the financial heaven and earth in their efforts to control both to producer and consumer. There is nothing to indicate that. New Zealand farmers will ever fare any better unless they decide upon owning their own ships for carrying

their own produce to the best market that is happening. Meanwhile, Americans . are inventing and organising means of getting control of the GerInian, and the mid-European markets. They now propose to use all alien, proi petty in the United' States as security I for extensive credit to Germany, peri mitting the building up of a large ! trading connection between the Unit[ed States and Germany. Whether Britain can afford to act similarly is another matter; banks and moneylending institutions will distinctly opposed to any such arrangement. The weak feature from their point of view. is that growers of commodities will participate more in the profits made than it is usual to allow them to do. Pledging alien property would only return ordinary interest, while safe trading with a similar sum would probably produce one hundred, or more, per cent. New Zealand's hope of using alien property as a basis for giving credit to Germany is very small indeed, and should there be any volume of alien security on which to base extensive credit, any proposal to do anything of the kind would be opposed tooth and nail. 'New Zealand producers are in the hands of gentlemen of the trust ilk, and thero( is no sign of the trust clutch either being shaken off or weakened. The market price of their wool will be just what wool-buyers in Britain arbitrarily fix; if the orgy of exploitation is not yet practised to an extreme endangering those engaged" therein wool.prices will be about sixpence a pound to the grower and five shillings a pound to the consumer. Of course, it will be seen that latent dangers have crept m; defences and fortification are being constructed around important edifices in London ana elsewhere, but it is not clearly stated what the nature of the enemy is that is being anticipated. People may succeed in putting trade on 'a; possible basis by peaceful means, but they can never succeed by adoption of Bolshevik tactics.