"A DIFFICULT YEAR”

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 254, 23 July 1927, Page 11

"A DIFFICULT YEAR”

Sir,—The above heading given to your report of the annual meeting of the New Zealand Breweries, Ltd., and the president’s reference to a year “of considerable difficulty” must make the average business man rub his eyes in astonishment when he sees the figures. The brewers, despite unemployment and great -business depression, after writing down heavily all their assets and paying taxes, find themselves with a practically 20 per cent, net profit and increased investments in gilt-edged securities. If this be the fruit of a “difficult” year, one wonders what the brewers would call a good year! The head of any other business would rejoice to „ announce such results, and not be moaning about “difficulty” while* carrying another £50,00.0 to the reserve. For propaganda purposes the brewers name the amount they have paid to the Government as beer duty. Actually they pay nothing—it is the man ! who drinks the beer who pays this duty. The brewers simply collect it from the drinking public. No other business ever dreams of posing like the liquor trade in regard to duties. The liquor trade is a cause of unemployment in /various ways. First, the expenditure,of over £8,500,000 per annum on liquor, means that much less spent on necessities. Secondly, men lose jobs through drinking, and remain unemployed longer than they would because; they are known to be drinkers. The diminished purchasing power of the community owing to the large expenditure on liquor means less demand, less production, and more unemployment There is no escape from that economic fact. Apart altogether from the Questions of saving life and character aria social happiness, the abolition of theliquor traffic would prove in New Zealand, as it has proved elsewhere, a tremendous factor in the solution of the unemployment problem. In 1925 the people were urged to vote Continuance in order “to avoid unemployment.” The president of N.Z. Breweries, Ltd., in 1927 reports tkat in 1926-27 “there has been considerable unemployment.” It is to be hoped the workers will remember that Continuance having continued there has been "considerable unemployment” also.—l am, etc./ T. MALTON MURRAY, Executive Secretary, New Zealand Alliance. Wellington, July 21.