CURRENT TOPICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXI, Issue 15256, 17 March 1910, Page 6

CURRENT TOPICS.

a pressing rHOBLEJi.

An agent of the United States Goverumerit is studying the

conditions of labour in Britain, and wo are told in a cablegram that ho has formed the opinion that the Amorican worker is a hundred per cent better off than his British oousin. The value of this opinion is largely discounted by reports from tho United States. Mr A. Maurice Low, writing iii the "Nineteenth Century," remarked that the most vital and pressing problem confronting tho people of the republic was the cost of living. Prices had increased so greatly that in a land of plenty vory many people found it a difficult matter to secure the ordinary necessaries of life. "Those persons," he said, " are not tho unemployed, or those occasionally employed, or forced by circumstances to accept starvation wages, but artisans, well-paid mechanics, small professional men and minor shopkeepers, with wages or incomes ranging from £l5O a year upwards, who feel the pinch of high prices." President Taft referred to the.matter in his annual message to Congress. Ho said that various reasons had been given for tho rise in values. The proportionate increase in the output of gold, which was the chief medium of exchange and in some respects a measure of value, furnished a substantial explanation of nt least part of the increasp in prices. " The increase in population and the more expensive niodo of living of the pooplo, which havo not been accompanied by a proportionate increase in acreage production," he added, " may furnish a further reason." Mr James J. Hill, one of tho great railway magnates, said that one of the causes was tho tendency of the rural population to leave tho land and flock into tho cities. If the average yield of Amorican farms wero equal to that of English farms, the profits of tho farmers would bo increased, and products could be sold at a lower price. A prominent scientist said that the real cause of the trouble

was that the people were eating more than they used to, while there had been no corresponding increase in the production per head of foodstuffs. The one point on which nil Americans agree is that the cost of living in their country is inordinately high, and that tho lot of the wage-earner is not becoming more happy.

FOOD TAXES.

The result of tho general election at Home shows that tho working

classes are by no means enamoured of th» idea of food taxes. Broadly speaking, the great industrial centres remained faithful to Freetrade, while the country districts and the small cathedral towns showed a loaning towards Protection. "If the farmers and farm workers look to Protection to raise the price of the foodstuffs they produce,"- writes the London correspondent of the "Lyttclton Times," "if is not surprising that they rote for it; but the town workers may be pardoned for a certain amount of scepticism when orators inform them that food-taxes will not increase tho cost of living. I believe that if food-taxes woro dropped out of the Tariff Reform programme it would mean the winning over of a multitude of voters who are ab present opposed to Tariff Reform, not because they are satisfied with Freetrade conditions, but because they fear the danger of dear food. Duties on imported manufactured articles would meet with support in quarters where duties on foodstuffs are bitterly Tosented and opposed. But the Tariff Reformers cannot afford to drop the foodtaxes. In the first place, they are bound to translate into action their fine sentiments with regard to Imperial preference, to the granting of which they are pledged up to the hilt. Secondly, they will urgently need the revenue from the food-taxes. If the dukes and the other big landlords are to escape the land-taxes and supertaxes imposed by the Liberals, the money needed for national expenses must be raised as far as possible by import duties." It is quite evident that taxes on manufactured goods would not produce enough revenue to meot tho growing needs of Britain. There would be a decrease in imports, owing to tho larger sales of homemanufactured goods, and taxes on food seem to bo the only alternative to the Budget proposals of Mr Lloyd George. On tho principle that " tho foreigner pays," adds the correspondent, the English peoplo are asked to suppose that the colonial shippers will pay the taxes imposed on foodstuffs sent to the Mother Country from the oversea dominions, and that tho prico of food will not be raised to the British worker. But tho Freetraders decline to believe that the tax will not fall ultimately on the consumers.

THE FISCAL BATTLE.

Tho fiscal battle at Home is raging round the question of whether

Tariff Reform will mean dearer food for the masses of the people. Tho Freetraders say that it will, and this argument, writes the London correspondent of the " Lyttelton Times," is by far the most effective weapon in their whole armoury. "Probably this is the reason," adds the correspondent, "why we have not heard so much about colonial preference in the fierce election campaign now concluded. When Mr Chamberlain started his Tariff R-eform crusade, preference for imports from British possessions overseas was put in the forefront of his programme as the one great means of consolidating the British Empire. As his enemies unkindly put it, ho ' banged the Imperial drum.' But his followers have showed a marked tendency to depart from the lines laid down by their chief. It is the local drum that they have banged so loudly, and the Imperial one has been tapped very lightly indeed. The energies of tho Tariff Reformers have been concentrated on tho question of Home industries. They have preached Tariff Reform as a cure for unemployment. ' Tax the foreigner and protect Home industries' is their great cry, with ' preference for the colonies' a bad second." The truth is that in their zeal in the early stages of tho campaign the Tariff Reformers said rather too much about tho " appeal of the colonies." Last month the. " Times," which is a strong supporter of Tariff Reform, remarked that some of tho arguments advanced on Protection platforms were foolish. Instead of endeavouring to demonstrate that food taxes would not increase tho cost of living, many orators had asked the workers of Britain to " help the colonies " and " unify tho Empire." Tho "Times" took its own party to task. " Unionists who defend the food taxes solely as a measure of Imperial expediency," it remarked, "expose themselves to a crushing rejoinder from their kinsmen overseas. Such rejoinders have been quoted against them with considerable effect throughout "this election in Lancashire and elsewhere. If they would consider the question from the standpoint of a Canadian or an Australian, they would rcaliso that it is not a pleasant compliment either to Australia or to Canada to suggest that their loyalty to the Empire wiJl depend in any degree whatever on permission to secure their interest in the British market at the expense of the British working classes." This is certainly the view that is taken of the matter by most people in this country.