The Otago Daily Times TUESDAY, MAY 25, 1948. LUMP-SUM JOBBERY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26780, 25 May 1948, Page 4

The Otago Daily Times TUESDAY, MAY 25, 1948. LUMP-SUM JOBBERY

The uneasiness that is being expressed by farmers all over New Zealand regarding the possibility of a continuation of the system of lumpsum payments is clear evidence that a substantial number of primary producers is still of the opinion that the “ partnership ” promised them by the Government in recent legislation is'a one-sided bargain indeed. If, as these farmers at present believe, the Government intends to negotiate for a continuation of these payments, their worst forebodings will have been confirmed, for whatever excuses might have been used to justify lump-sum payments four years ago cannot possibly be valid to-day. and if any official attempt is made to renew the principle the suspicion will become certainty that the Government is pursuing a policy of deliberately raiding primary producers’ earnings in order to subsidise its bankrupt policy of “ stabilised ” Socialisation. The lumpsum policy is a new one in international trade agreements, and one of its characteristics is that it affords a convenient subterfuge by which the people of both buyer and seller nations can be kept in ignorance of the exact pi’ice paid for commodities. It also offers scope—and this is the immediate concern of New Zealand farmers—for a Government to defraud producers of the full value of their produce, since it is evident that while Great Britain remains a debtor nation lump-sum payments, however they are disguised, would be made only as part payment for goods delivered. Great Britain is in no position to scatter largesse, nor is this Dominion in need<of it. The principle of lump-sum payments was established in 1944 when, in addition to the rates fixed for the bulk purchase of New Zealand dairy produce and meat, a payment of £12,000,000 was granted, together with four annual payments of £4,000,000 each, the last to be made this year. It was stated at the time that these payments were for the benefit of the community as a whole in recognition of the benefit Great Britain was receiving from New Zealand’s policy of stabilisation. This explanation was hotly challenged, but was finally—and reluctantly—accepted after assurances had been given by the industry’s leaders that protests would not avail. Consideration was also given to the fact that New Zealand’s earnings in the United Kingdom were comparatively small, and.the lump-sum payments offered some economic protection against unpredictable war-time demands. To-day, however, New Zealand is the creditor nation, with large sterling reserves frozen in 1 London - from which a niggardly £10,000,000 was recently made available as a gift to Great Britain. No extension of the lump-sum payments system can, therefore, be justified, and the principle should not be permitted to enter into the current negotiations for New Zealand butter, cheese and meat. The farmers of New Zealand have no desire, or intention, of driving an avaricious bargain with Great Britain, but they are entitled to demand that they receive the full price that the British Government is prepared to pay for their produce, not the amount that is left after the ‘New Zealand Government’s greedy fingers have dipped into the funds that the United Kingdom is prepared to make available.

WHOSE FAULT?

It is always very easy when fighting starts, whether, on a street corner or between nations, for all the contestants to “ blame the other fellow,” and for the spectators to provide confused and inaccurate reports on what has happened. The fighting in Palestine supplies an example. Culpability for it must be widely diffused—among the Zionists, in 'Palestine and without, who have pursued a traditional goal by all means within their power; among the members of the Arab League, who have refused to concede Jewish ..proprietary rights to any part of Palestine; among the British peoples, who have—through successive Governments —blown hot and cold on the Balfour Declaration; and the Americans, who have been in turn pro-Jewish, isolationist, partitionist, anti-partitionist, v and proJewish again, while most of the time affecting a keen regard for Arab aspirations—and Arab oil. And this catalogue overlooks the Russians, whose dark paths of policy have revealed many sinister turns, and the peoples of a dozen other nations who have used the Palestine problem with relish as a useful propagandist weapon.

Yet suddenly, after so many nations have dabbled so ineffectually and disingenuously in Palestine, there is war, and this is accompanied by a sanctimonious cry by the spectators, and by one of the contestants besides, that Great Britain is entirely to blame. That is a canard, particularly coming from the United States, which must itself face the bar of world opinion as a mischievous party to the conflict. Of Great Britain’s immediate responsibility for the outbreak of hostilities, and in part for the events preceding, there can be no doubt. The present British Government, through timorous realism alternating with idealistic incompetence, has dipped its hands in both Palestinian and Indian blood. Its record of —as Mr Churchill would phrase it—liquidation of the Empire, is one of tragic bungling, which has imposed suffering on millions and now has precipitated a war. But it is not for America, with an indifferent people, an hysterical press, and an inept and vacillating executive, to lead the chorus of denunciation. The American sense of world responsibility is one of the good things in the world to-day; but Americans must realise that their responsibility is indivisible.