SUGAR CONTROL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18319, 9 August 1921, Page 4

SUGAR CONTROL

The public would be interested to know what the precise position is in regard to the contract for the supply of sugar to the dominion. It is,, moreover, entitled to know. It is on its behalf that the contract is made with the Colonial Sugar Company. Over three weeks ago it was stated by Mr Downie Stewart, Minister of Customs, that a contract, “which would not expire until June, 1922, had been entered into “ some time ago” between the Government and the Colonial Sugar Company. The Minister’s intimation as to the date of the expiry of the contract suggests that the document was prepared in June last. It is true that the Minister also said that certain details were under negotiation by the ' Board .of Trade with a view to the preparation of a formal contract. How the Government was able to enter into a contract, of which the details had not been settled, seems to us to be somewhat mysterious. Nor is the mystery rendered any the less perplexing by the fact that, about the time when the Minister of Customs made the statement to which we have referred, the chairman of the Board of Trade publicly announced that the department had entered into further negotiations with the Colonial Sugar Company for the coming year’s requirements and had been able to obtain a reasonable offer from the company. To reconcile the two statements is, we fear, beyond our capacity. But it is obvious enough that 'there is a very distinct lack of frankness on the part of the Board of Trade, and the impression that it is not treating the community with the fairpess that should be expected of it will be strengthened by the report that the Board is deliberately delaying the announcement of the terms of the contract, providing for a reduction in the price of sugar, in order that it may be enabled to avoid a loss under the old contract under which it is both a buyer and a seller of sugar. This may, of course, scemi* to the Board of Trade to be good business on its part, but the consumers arc not so unintelligent as to be really deceived by a procedure of tHis kind. The Board of Trade is merely a department of the Government and, as the Government is the agent of the people as a whole, it is to the people as a whole that the Board of Trade is responsible for what it does, and it is the people as a whole who have to take the consequences of the Board’s hand-, ling of the sugar business. And if the people as a whole are paying-more than they should pay at the present time for the sugar they buy in order that they may not lose so much as they would otherwise lose under last year’s sugar contract, it is hard to see from their point of view what is to be gained by the pursuance of the strange policy that is attributed to the Board of Trade.