MONEY FOR TALLOW.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXV, Issue 226, 23 August 1945, Page 4

MONEY FOR TALLOW.

Lv making’ application to the Government for a portion of the proceeds from the commandeer of tallow during the war, above the price allowed for/the Palmerston North City Council has sought to rectify a most unfair position. From August 1, 1940, to December 3.1, 1942, the Export Marketing Division acquired nearly 664 tons of tallow from the Council at the commandeer price, and a statement issued in April last showed a profit of £8 a ton for the year ended July 31, 1943. The Council decided to apply for a quarter share of this profit as -file least it should ask for, but the Government conveniently sheltered behind the Stabilisation Commission, the Director of which, in turn, has passed the Council to “another authority,” the Economic Stabilisation Commission. • At the same time the Director regards the application as having “little merit” because the Council “shows a profit in the boiling-down department,” a queer form of reasoning. There will be general agreement with the Mayor that the position is not at all satisfactory, and in being “passed from one department to another” there is sound ground for the complaint voiced by the Council. Had there been no commandeer and the same facilities provided for disposal of the tallow as the Government enjoyed, the City Council would have made a substantial sum. The Government having done so on its allotted price should in all fairness return at least some of this surplus to the ratepayers. This it refuses to do, and yet its members are continually protesting against profiteering in business. But when the Government profiteers, as in this case, it lacks the mind to rectify an unfair advantage.