THE KAURI GUM BILL

Northland Age, Volume 25, Issue 27, 22 October 1925, Page 6

THE KAURI GUM BILL

AN EXPERIMENT IN TRUST. (By Keri Keri) The lion is to lie down with the Jamb and the Governmental little twins aic to feed them ! Just now, control bills are in the air. “Control” is all right, it is O.K. when the right people have control. But the butter people, or the meat people* would not think of handing the control of their industry over to the merchants, nor even of giving it into the hands of a Government-and-Merchatit junta. The I wicked storekeepers, who used to bay all the gum and hold it, (incidentally finding the finance), are to be cut out. The merchants are to be kept m. They are to have one seat on the Beard, the diggers are to have two, there are to be two Government appointees and one ot these latter ts to have the usual casting vote. There are thus two diggers' votes and four others if the chairman’s casting vote is included; enough to make a fine show of impartiality and yet to turn the scale down with a bang against the producer. StTinuch for the nature of “Control.” The storekeepers are apparently quite unnecessary in the scheme of things, but the merchants we cannot do wilhout, n’est co pas? As a matter of fact, as long as the merchants are m it at all, they will be the controlling factor and will do as they like. Periiaps they will give good prices for a time, there is plenty of scope. 1 he Minister for Lands, introducing the second reading of the Bill, said that it was on lines similar to other control bills put through the House. Not too similar ! This calf has been born with ticks on it. The Meal and Dairy Control Boards do not consist of merchants’ representatives, Government appointees and producers, with the producers in a decided minority. Mr, Masters pointed out that the “people of the North were very trusting people if they agreed that the Minister should fix\ the levy on gum at anything he likes.” T If that were the whole extent of the trust, it would not be so bad. The producers are being called on to trust everyone, with j the exception of the small storekeeper, who has hitherto trusted them. According to an interjection recorded in Hansard there are about 700 men engaged in gum digging. The export value of gum has been about half a million per annum—£s96,ooo in 1923. Each digger was therefore responsible for producing about £BSO exportable value of gum. That the digger gets only the merest lookin at the profit is very obvious. A remedy is needed and badly aeeded, but the Bill will not supply it. (The average exp or price per ton during the first ten months of 1924 was £B3 10 0. Almost all gum is now low grade.) The finance available under the provisions of the Act is £IOO,OOO and that will be gone in a very short time. The digger is to get “advances;” —what “advances” is not clear. They cannot be much with finance so strictly limited. Many diggers are well “advanced" already by the storei keepers and it will take their earnings, j not advances, to keep them going. A j fraction of their earnings will not do. j What will happen ? Sly gumming, or illieit gum buying, wherein a licensed gum digger who is financial, or can get finance will buy at his own price, and we all know who these people are likeiy to be. Gum is not like butter, cheese and meat when it comes to marketing. It is a side line with many oi those who export it and with most of those who buy j at home. That makes it almost impossible | to come to any arrangement with those at . home, apartfrom the Auckland merchants. ! The home buyers will not prejudice their J connections with this side for the sake of I the comparitively unimportant line of kauri gum. But, as with most difficulties, the bold course is the best and if the Government had elected to take that course, i a producers’ monopoly of kauri gum would have solved the problem. The j difference between the Kauri Gum Board 1 I and the other Boards would then have been in the necessity for the provision of ] initial finanm on a liberal scale by the State. This could have been recouped j gradually from the levies. There would ' be no difficulty in ssliiag any gum that would be otherwise saleable if all gum were pooled, and that is what it must j come to sooner or later, if the marketing of gum in the producers’ interest is to be i seriously attempted. Meanwhile the Kauri Gnm Control Bill reminds the writer of a little anecdote which appeared in the “Age,” under “Wise and Otherwise” lately:— An elephant was walking in a jungle when he came to pheasant’s nest and found that the mother bird had flown away. The small birds looked very lonely and cold and hungry. I oor little tilings,” said the elephant in . a sentimental voice. “They have no mother.” And he sat down on the nest.