WHAT IS EXPLOITATION?

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVI, Issue 16842, 28 April 1915, Page 11

WHAT IS EXPLOITATION?

TO THE EDITOR* Sir,- —I am of the opinion that you deserve the commendation of the readers of your esteemed journal for your straight talk to the Right*Hon W. F. Massey in reference to tho inflated prices which have been tho order of the day since tho outbreak of war. .Mr Andrew Fairbairn deserves the utmost credit for his public spirited action ill taking this matter up. and his expressed determination to soe thu matter through. Mr Fairbairn has given evidence on oatli before the Food Prices ConinvsSion, and yet the Commission states that it has not received any ovidenco in that direction. Evidently the time lias arrived for the community to demand that evidence shall bo "again taken, and that the sittings of the Commission shall be open to Press and public. Tho statement of the secretary of the Commission, in his letter to mb, “ that high prices'and exploitation are not convertible terms,” may be correct, but there is not tho slightest doubt that many traders, merchants principally, have taken advantage of tho circumstances arising out of the war to put up prices of foodstuffs in an unwarranted manner. Even if their action has not been illegal in the ordinary way, it lias been illegal in v : ew of the fact that Parliament passed special legislation last session to make it so. .The consumers in the Dominion have been exploit© I for years by the controllers of the butter market. AdvAntngo has been" taken of 000 l storage to store the surplus product in New Zealand, and of the refrigerator to ship it to ontsido markets, and the consumers here a*e made to pay any price for the butter they require, which may be fixed by the combination of speculators and factory owners. The Commission knows this, but says that an export tax is impracticable. Well, if an export tax w : ll not work satisfactorily, then the Government should do its duty by taking steps to ensure that the export will be restricted to the extent that there will- not bs any shortage for local rrquTements, and fixing the price, wholesale and retail, in New Zealand. If the general taxpayer had not been taxed to provide many hundreds of thousands of pounds during the past thirty years to open up markets in England and elsewhere, by subsidising steamsh : p lines, establishing an Agricultural Department, appointing trade comm : ss : onors, graders, etc., the dairying; industry would hot be the flourishing Institution it is to-day. and butter, ell'esc, meat, etc., would be a drug on tho market. The old gag about the general taxpayer benefiting by tbo increase in tho farmers' wealth, which lie is supposed to distribute, is played out, and the time is overripe for" stringent measures to be adopted to put a stop to the scandalous oxp’oitation so brazenly indulged in.—l et<s ’ HTRASI HUNTER.. Sydenham, April -4.