PLAINTIVE PATE A.

Free Lance, Volume XVI, Issue 849, 13 October 1916, Page 6

PLAINTIVE PATE A.

A Fight Between Monopolists.

tT is highly < amusing to notice the bitter cry of the poor, pastoralist, as voiced by Mr. the member for Patea, in connection with the raising of wool freights by the.shipping companies. That shipping com- ' panies, all the world, over,, have greedily and/selfishly availed themselves of the opportunity offered by the war for grabbing colossal extra, profits, "has long been, notorious. But that the ''sheep kings" of the Dominion should have the nerve to • ask for State assistance —by State-owiied steamers, etc.—in- -fighting the Shipping Trust is really delightfully 1 cool. As a matter. of . fact, the pastoralists have scooped in enormous additional profits through the 1 war. For the men who monopolise huge areas of land which ought long ago to. have been 'forced into: subdivision, by a really effective laiid tax to "denounce, the "greed" of the shaping ring is surely very rich. ■ , . : Many people think , the pastoraliste should ■ consider . themselves remarkably lucky' in that the State did not, at the commencement of the war, at once comniandeer the whole of the . wool crop, giving the sheep kings a. fitir price, say a, shilling a pound all, round, and seizing the surplus as'unearned increment. The money thus; obtained would have gone far towards meeting the cost of the Expeditionary Force an<l Reinforcements, the expense of maintaining which is proving so heavy a burden oh the taxpayer of small or modest income. If the poor down-trodden sheep kings want to fight the shipping companies, let them do. it out of their ovrn fat profits. To come forward and dsk the State to do it for them —at the cost of the general , taxpayer—is about/: the cheekiest and most absurd proposition we have ever heard of,; And the" joke of the whole thing is that this same proposition is being solemnly put forward by a member of Parliament who, in season and out of season,, has roundly denounced all "State interference, with private enterprise/' The plaintive wail of Mr. Pearce has, we.fear, fallen upona very unsympathetic, audience.