THE GREY RIVER ARGUS TUESDAY, JULY 24, 1923. THE SUGAR MONOPOLY.

Grey River Argus, 24 July 1923, Page 4

THE GREY RIVER ARGUS TUESDAY, JULY 24, 1923. THE SUGAR MONOPOLY.

Only a slight acquaintance with the history ot the Colonial Sugar Company is necessary to convince anybody that such a monopoly is detrimental to this country, its huge profits are undeniable, and where not due to excessive charges, they have been gained by limiting the people’s choice of sugar to the C. S. R. Coy. products, with the usual accompaniment of higher prices lor many linos which, in the absence ol a protected monopoly, could be imported far more cheaply. For this reason, it is hard to understand why the Government should countenance the granting to this monopoly of a protective duty of £3 per ton against any other refined sugar that could be imported. The C. H. R. Coy. is to-day tolling the Government it will refuse to produce refined sugar without all outside competitors are taxed £3 per ton, simply because it knows its own article is the most suitable for certain industrial uses such as jam making, and it is taking an unfair advantage of the Dominion on this ground alone. If the C.S.R. Coy feared that from other sources sugar equally suitable for these purposes could at present bo obtained, there would be no talk of its pulling down its Chelsea refinery and packing 't away somewhere else. The Government has been too indulgeht to it. It has allowed it rebates until the company had spread its tentacles all over New Zealand, gripping all the merchants so that they could do nothing but handle its products alone, taking all the risks and but a mere trifle of the profits. Hence wo find even yet many of the merchants are too scared of it. to say out what they think about it. Before the war the company had secured an 'ahsolute monopoly, and when the war began the Government went further, and acted as its distributing agent. This was countenanced by the people because they assumed it meant cheaper sugar, and admitting that it did, the reason why the company did not raise the prices higher was sol°ly because it desired by means of the State control of distribution to perpetuate its monopoly. We get the proof of it now in the shape of the demand for the £3 per ton duty; or the dismantling of the Auckland refinery as the alternative. Thirty years ago or so, the New Zealand market was not monopolised, and our merchants could import sugar from Mauritius, China, India, Java, and Queensland, the Chinese article being, like that from Queensland, of the finest kind. But since the C. S. R. Company perfected the monopoly, we have had to be content with Fiji sugar alone. Mr Massey, the other day asked Mr Holland wheie we were going to get sugar elso.v.heie, but he knows that even now the C. S. R. Coy., is importing raw sugar from Java, and surely other people could do the same, if there were no duty 01 embargo; against it . New Zealand should have a free market for sugar. We don’t grow it ourselves, so there is no call for a duty any more than for control. The Government, m dropping the one shortly, should drop the other also. If the C. S. K. Coy., is given a year with a duty to j? establish its hold upon the merchants, it will have them held, up just the same as they were hoiore the Gov

eminent stepped in and managed iho.i monopoly on the company. Mr Holland told the Government what they should do in the event of the company attempting to take off its refinery, and

that is to take it over as a »State concern, and run it for use instead of for profit. The facts cited by the Labour Leader as io, the effects of the C. S. B. Coy. monopoly in Australia are an eye-opener to anyone learning them for the first time. He called it 11 the most scandalous robber concern that Australasia has ever known.” It began operations, he stated, with £150,000 capital, and its income has since averaged five times the amount of ‘•tliati original capital—or about three-quarters of a million per annum. It is able, for instance, he says, to put £50,000 into the exchequer of a political party in Queensland to fight the Labour movement in the interests of capitalistic monopoly. Its capital has boon watered down time and again, but the apparent drop thus made in the dividend per centago is mere camouflage. Its capitalised reserves run into six and a half millions, and twothirds of this has been due to sharewatering, bonus stock issues, and the creation of subsidiary companies. The time has come, surely, when this country should tell the C. S. R. Coy. that it will not give it £lBO,OOO worth of a margin of protection per annum in the shape of a duty of £3 per ton on refined sugar in order to provide a monopoly that will mean overcharging the people and limiting jheir choice of so necessary a commodity as sugar.