LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2390, 20 February 1915, Page 9

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

COST OF LIVING. Sir, —I noticed in your issue of February 11 a report of a meeting held by tho Labour Representation Committee, as the chairman put' it, to protest against the rise in the cost of living and to tnak© thoße responsible realise their oritaes against society. I note Mr. F.'T. Mooro acoUsed. tho Farmers' TJiiion of taking advantage of the tiiheß to obtain an outrageous rite of profit bn their investments. To his mind that orgahisation was solely responsible for the exorbitant. prices ■ of moat, bread, and butter. In some : cases farthers were asking prices for commodities 150 per ceflt. greater than the price at which they could be profitably produced, and so on.

Now, sir, the Farmers' Union is not a .vendor;of-farmers' produce, and has no investments. It could hot, even if it would, lower or raise the' price of food-stuffs—-that is regulated by the law:.of supply and detaand. It alwayshas been so, and probably' atways will be so. Little New Zealahd dCCs not—as 1 should have thought every person in this country was aware—set the prices of meat, bread, and butter. Almost the whole of our esjorts go to Great Britain, and fie the market there high or low we have to take what is,given us. Prices at present are admittedly high. Hungary cannot send wheat to Great Britain •/' all other countries send it at a great risk. Vast quantities of .meat, are required for tho. armies. Butter supplies are cut off from Siberia, etc. Why not blame the fight Kaisfef and his war party. It is true we havo; no wheat to export; fre have riot indeed sufficient.for Cur own wants. Wily? Simply" because the ruling pried for , the past tew-years li&b not encouraged the fanikr to grow it. Now it' is Up to a payable pfice owing to a short-age-and there is an outcry. . It just amounts,to this: the farmers are tha best judges of what pays them best to grtw, aid they will sell their produce to the highest bidder, .just the same a.j Mr. Moore and the friends he represents will sell, their labour in the highest market. ; And who. can. blame them ? I taight point out, that farmers feed most of their hands, so that the cost of living' affects them and not then moii to any appreciable extftnt. The, tone of the remarks at these meetings wbiild load tho public to believe that wage-earners were almqst the only sufferers. I don't, see it in . that light. As far as I am aware, there is nothing to prevent Messrs. M'L&ren, Moore, And Co. .giving up their present emplbj;ment and indulging in what they evidently consider tho very luorativo business of producing wheat, bUttei', cto. Should they do so thoy Would learn that -6ne swallow does not make a summer, and that their living .would be obtained f.rota average earnings, which would not be consistently even as a regular weekly .Wage. - v If it were possible to control tho pi ion 6f aiiy productions it would bo on the necessaries of life, which aro too porisbable to .export, and as proof of now erroneous is tho idea. that, anything of the sort is going on, I will instance tho price of potatoes last season. * There was undoubtedly over-production, with the reSult that; prices as low as 30S. per toil had to be accepted. As it costs Something like twenty pbunds to place an acre'crop on rail, it is obvious the iarger 'proportion of growers made a lieavy loss. I did nbt hear that they blamed the Government, neither did I boar that the gentlemen who addressed the. meeting on the 10th gave them any credit tor the low prices, which no doubt Suited tho wage-earners admirably. Have we any _ grave cause to growl about the_cCSt bf living? I havo beforb'tno Some'entries iu'an old. day-book made in 1864; and onco belonging to a small store kept in the 'Rangitikei' district, and tho following 'are a few of tho DfiCes: Jam, Ib. 63. ; sugar, BJd.; sperm Candles, 2s'. ; tCa, _4s'.'; starch, Is. 6d.; rice, 6d.; currants, Is.; nails, Od.; oatmeal, 6d., all at per lb. In those dayi legs of mutton were worth Is.' each, and casual labour on farms 7s. per day Now the current rate, for, the latter is l()s. Would' the majority in this Country, would the Wage-earners in particular. vote to revert to that State flf affairs? ' If not, then the Prime Minister has ample justification in glorying in the high prices of the products' of tho country. Mr. M'Laren considers he has not, but Mr. Missey is wisd enough to know that : there .is scarcely ah individual who is not directly t indirect! v benefited.; _ Personally, I think we have as 1 a Dominion every reason to Congratulate ourselves that this lissstioue war has not made us' suffer>onsiderably. As it is, I Euppose we hive s6 fair get off lighter than any part of tho British Empire.-*-I am, nto.', P. J. ELLIS.

"THE BOYS OF THE SILVER FERN." •Sir,—lt is a prosaic spirit that seems to animate the military powers that be when they, allow troops' to represent New Zealand in other olimes without any to associate them with the Land of the Fern that.sent them forth. But quite apart from any : patriotic sentiment—it is a pure matter of conveiiienoe where large numbers of men from many lands are iniged together to know where one comes from by such i a well-known emblem as the fern leaf. I .The Canadian has the maple leaf on his hat—the Australian, a natty little kangaroo on each collar, and doubtlesß Other colonies have respective badges to denote their origin. - The Queensland-' ers go a step further, and have emu plumes in their hats. It was the same in. South Africa. There the Scottish Horse had a plume of black cOck's feathers in their hats, the South African Corps had many of them a bushy meercat s tail twined round their headgear, and the New' Zealander had- a bronze fern leaf on. his hat. Now, what has a New Zealander at the present day in Egypt, Belgium, England, Or wherever he may be sent to Show what he'i6? Absolutely nothing. Yet an Australian writing home to his people the other day referred to a haka given in a Cairo cafe by the "boys of the silver fern," showing how. widely known the national emblem is in other lands. A New Zealander, too, in the same place—Egypt—writing in the ''Egyptian Mail," has to invoke in turn the shades of Anthony Wilding; Dick Arnst, Carbine, the All Blacks, and many Others to show that New Zealanders are not Australians. ' Surely, ■ this Shotild rtot be necessary. j Wheti the troops were sent it is a pitV the fern leaf-was omitted, as it has honourable associations on the football field and many other manly sports that go to make a good soldier' and a good citizen.—l 4m. etc., ■ . - PAORA TtfHAERE.