The Daily News. TUESDAY, MARCH 7, 1911. COMMERCIAL PIRATES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 255, 7 March 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. TUESDAY, MARCH 7, 1911. COMMERCIAL PIRATES.

A grim joke commonly bandied about on a card a few years ago read: "The bearer has my permission to walk the earth.—J. D. Rockefeller." And a commoner jest in relation to our American relatives is that "they want the earth for a cattle ranch and tlie moon for a slaughter-yard." The feverish activity of American commercial combines is generally exercised in order to increase ; the millions of each of a group of individuals the amalgamation of whose riches becomes the most powerful vvea- 1 pon that can be used against the people. No means, however foul, arc too despicable to be employed in the race for unneeded dollars, and no ambition too vast for the commercial genius of the United States. The Beef Trust of America wants to control every steer in Queensland or any other part of Australia; it almost wholly controls the Argentine bullock; it has its heavy foot on English soil; and, as everyone knows, no American citizen is immune from the screw of the combine. The Beef Trust sent its scouts to Australia, where there was an immediate attempt to lay the foundation of a system for mopping up the Australian business. The peculiarity of the American method is its apparent initial benevolence. When it had been partially successful in controlling the steak of the United States citizen, it kindly reduced the price to him, until the enemy capitulated and the market was in the hands of the combine. Then it began the process of raising prices, so that millionaires might join the "multi" variety, purchase "priceless" works of art, endow universities, build palaces in the mountains, and hire huge ships to go on a Coronation trip. Australian statesmen j are naturally "up in arms" at the nefarious attempts of the Beef Combine, which, should it capture the colonial supply, together with the supplies it has tothered already, can dictate to the best market in the world (London). Up to now apparently the Beef Trust has merely done a little preliminary scouting in Australia, and before it has had time to' capture a single hoof the Commonwealth Government has thrown down the gauntlet. It is to be hoped that the Commonwealth will be more successful in this conflict than it was. in its fight with an American machine combine, for this last is much the more important mattor of the two. The Commonwealth Government is ready to take "immediate and drastic action to discourage and, if necessary, to prohibit the operations of the Trust in Australia," and it has further said that it will fight all it knows to save the great Australian industry even if the capital is subscribed locally by Australians anxious to put a screw on the people for the sake of the capitalist's banking account. The Federal AttorneyGeneral is a little doubtful, whet tier under the present constitution the Commonwealth has power to successfully smash the enemy, but if Australia and its politicians are convinced that the evil must be nipped in the bud the permissive amendment of the constitution is inevitable. In New Zealand we have had small examples of the power of American commercial combines and the operations of one (or is it two?) of these combines, together with tlif possibility that the Beef Barons might cast their eyes on this bit of uncaptured territory inspired immediate .action on the part of the New Zealand Government. In fact, the Premier has threatened (with what chance of success we know not) to nationalise all the freezing works in New Zealand if there i,s a determined onslaught of the "barons" on the trade. Australians and New Zealanders are likely (having watched the operations of. American trusts elsewhere) to bo blinded by the glitter of "foreign capital," nor can the masses be gulled into the belief that temporary decrease of price under trust methods is benevolently intended. New Zealanders generally pay far too high a price not only for the things they import, but the things they grow—and of the latter they obtain the "leavings." In fact, the New Zealand "free breakfast table" is a pleasant delusion, and the family which wants to fill its collective stomach daily has enough trouble in doing it without being harassed by foreign food jugglers. It is'hoped that the inhospitality extended bv both Australia and New Zealand to American trusts will grow stronger at each attempt to raid either country. Possibly preparation to stave off probable international complications may keep Brother Jonathan too busy in his armory to inspire him with a very general desire for extended commercial thefts. If he can fight as well as lie can st<?al, Japan's fate is sealed. It is very brave of Australia and New Zealand to defy the wonderful organisation, energy and dollars of an American beef trust, and it is rather problematical whether once the barons got their feet in these lands whether there would be unitv enough to fight them in the only effective way—by boycott. In New Zealand, at any rate, the operations of small trusts inspire just anger, but no boycott. One New Zealand city, to quote a single example, has periodical fits of anger at the operations of the Chinese Fruit and Vegetable Trust, but it has never got to the point of boycott—the only practical solution. In fact, people who get heated about the price of beef or bread, potatoes or cabbages, knowing that prices are arranged by united action, still eat potatoes and cabbages, beef and bread, and the fashion of consuming steak would not go out even if Armour's brand were on every slice of it. Tn the meantime Australia and New Zealand are to try to stick to their own brands.