MANAWATU DAILY TIMES. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1920. BUTTER—PASS IT ON!

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIII, Issue 1661, 14 October 1920, Page 4

MANAWATU DAILY TIMES. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1920. BUTTER—PASS IT ON!

If anybody hereabouts has got any idea as to how the Minister of Finance can raise £OOO,OOO a year

"without anybody feeling it," in order that the butter producers may be subsidised to the point of equivalence with British prices, now is the time to send it along. The Butter Committee appointed by the House has argued, very logically, that as no restriction has been placed on the prices of other products, it is not fair that butter should be sorted out for special treatment. It is proposed, therefore, thai a sufficient amount should be requisitioned for the requirements of the local population at 2/<> per lb. and that the retail price should be 2/3 cash or 2/5 booked. The Prime Minister has pointed out that every penny of subsidy is going to cost £IOO,OOO, and the job is to discover some section of the population which will find six penn'orth of a subsidy on this scale. One member ejaculated "Put it on the death duties!" and another. "Put it on beer!" but snap suggestions of that kind are not very helpful. There has been a good deal of talk about stopping export, and declaring butter "black," and a section of thoughtless people applaud the suggestion. Some time ago a restriction was put upon wheat, and the wheat-growers immediately looked for —and found —more profitable forms of production. There in nothing to prevent the butter fac-

Tories from going out of that line of business and concentrating on cheese and other commodities and thus producing a butter famine. For many years meat has been expensive locally in comparison with the export parity, and everyone knows that the finished wool product costs the average New Zealander very much more than circumstances seem to warrant. The same thing happens with hides and boots. Yet it is' not proposed to declare meat and wool and hides "black." Any such policy would lead New Zealand along the broad highway to ruin, because we need the money that these raw products bring in to purchase commodities abroad and to pay our private and national debts. There is no argument for restricting prices of one product which could not be as effectively used for restricting the prices of all products. The result would be the same. Restriction means repudiation, and repudiation spells—bankruptcy. But Cabinet is faced with the position that the wage-earners have got to have cheaper butter or more wages, and they are naturally searching for the line of least resistance. Hence the subsidy proposal, objectionable and illogical by any other test, but necessitated by expediency. The fact is that New Zealanders are a pampered people who are not prepared to face deprivation, and have no capacity for self-denial. They spent last year £6,280,226 on strong- drinks, some millions on going to and from racecourses and in betting, and all sorts of money on amusements of various kinds, but they are not prepared to forego one item likely to minister to their palates or their pleasures so long as by agitations and threats directed mainly at the politicians, they can evade the consequences of this spendthrift mode of life. And yet because the dairy farmers, who, as a class, are probably the hardest worked and most thrifty and provident people in the community, have been reaping the reward of their industry of late, are demanding the open market for their products—in the same way that the wage-earners are demanding the open market for their labour —butter is to be declared "black" unless the politicians can pass the butter burden on to some other class "who will not feel it," Abraham Lincoln created the saying: "You cannot fool the whole of the people the whole of the time."- Probably it is because they are so busy fooling themselves. The butter subsidy can only come out of the common pool. There is no way of dodging it, and no way of passing it on!