ALLEGER PROFITEERING.

Otago Witness, Issue 3443, 9 March 1920, Page 18

ALLEGER PROFITEERING.

(By Cable.) GROSSLY EXCESSIVE PROFITS. The report of the Profiteering Sub-com-mittee on the price of motor fuel declares that the present high prices are due to the demand outstripping the supply; also to powerful financial interests taking advantage of this position to raise prices. The report states that the average cost of production of petrol should not exceed £7 103 per ton; therefore, it maintains that a price of ££3 per ton reveals a grossly excessive profit. It recommends that the whole question of production, price, and distribution should engage the attention of the League of Nations, or be made the subject of an international agreement. The report strongly emphasises the point that, on the expiry in 1920 of the existing contracts binding the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, in which the British Government has a controlling interest, steps should be taken to ensure a reasonable price to Britain, irrespective of other countries. $ Referring to the cost of transport, the report points out that the rate beween North Atlantic ports and the United Kingdom before the war was 18s per ton, and it is now 220 s per ton. From the Persion Gulf the freight was 36s per ton, and it is now 208 s. From Borneo it wis 46s 6d; now it is 410 s. The committee expresses the opinion that a fair average rate could not exceed TOOs per ton, even from Gulf of Persia ports. The committee recommends fixing the retail price of No. 1 petrol at 34£d. The report describes the situation as alarming, and strongly expresses the; opinion that the ultimate solution is the production of home-produced or Empire produced power alcohol. It recommends that the production and distribution of power alcohol be under Government control. It also suggests that a tax on motor fuel would be more equitable than a tax on motor cars. WAR WEALTH TAXATION. LONDON, March 3. A Board of Inland Revenue memorandum furnishes striking figures, estimating the net increase of wealth between 1914 and 1919 at £4,000,000,000, of which £200,000,000 is estimated to have been made by 280 individuals. It is therefore suggested by the memorandum that a "war levy should b'e primarily charged upon individuals, starting from a clear comparison of each individual's two aggregate capital values, fixed at June 30, 1914, and June 30, 1919. Returns of value, as well as of the sources of wealth, would have to be made by the taxpayer. The Board of Inland Revenue suggests that detection of wilful evasion should result in recovery of the duty, also heavy monetary penalties and imprisonment. THE CHURCH AND PROFITEERING. SYDNEY, March 4. A feature of the. Methodist Conference is the exhaustive discussion on the relations between the Church and the workers. The workers' position generally is being debated, and a pronouncement is to be submitted to the General Conference on the Christianising of social relations. This pronouncement, inter alia, condemns profiteering and the present anarchic and unconstitutional methods of seeking redress, and favours an economic system which will ensure an equitable distribution of the rewards of industry, giving the worker a share- in the profits and risks of business, and one that will abolish all forms of sweating, profiteering, and the

oppression of one section of the community by another. The pronouncement declares that the Church stands aloof from the toilers' struggle for more wholesome conditions of life, but its aim should be the Christianising of industrial relations, so that industry will become a religious experience, interpreting in economic terms the Brotherhood of Man and the Fatherhood of God.