THE SHIPPING BUCCANEERS

Maoriland Worker, Volume 12, Issue 299, 22 November 1922, Page 1

THE SHIPPING BUCCANEERS

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. New Zealand is now in the clutches of a group of absentee dividend snatchers. These people, who comprise the P. and 0., "lay down the jaw" to our Government and to the population of New Zealand. "Last year, although a slump-year, they made nearly £100,000 more profit than the year before, and paid a 12 per cent, dividend free of tax. But this notwithstanding Lord Ineheape, their chairman, insisted that "wages must come down." After the strike of 1913, when thousands of farmers rushed to the aid of the shipping companies now merged in the P. and 0., the shipowners showed their gratitude by putting freights up 25 per cent. During the war they lifted freights on wool on one occasion by one penny a pound, and by this act alone fleeced the farmers and pastoralists by £1,000,000 a*year ! Under the stress of this robbery Farmers' Unions, Chambers of Commerce, and even Tory M.P.'s-declared in favour cf a Stateowned Line of Ships. Mr. Massey did nothing. The monopolists wjio, plundered farmers 'still control the means of transport. If the shipping companies have ruthlessly exploited the farming community is there any reason for thinking that they will not pillage the wage-earners? There is not. Do you remember Bonar Law's revelations? He said that on £7,500 invested in a shipping concern-he got £8,300 in dividends in two" years during the war! . - That is how these unpatriotic shipping companies treated the British people in their hour of peril. You must apply the remedy. Vote Labour, and let the Nation, and not the profiteers, own the ships.