Rangitikei Advocate. THURSDAY, JULY 11, 1907. SECOND EDITION. EDITORIAL NOTES

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXII, Issue 8861, 11 July 1907, Page 2

Rangitikei Advocate. THURSDAY, JULY 11, 1907. SECOND EDITION. EDITORIAL NOTES

THE Evening Post, as a city paper, naturally objects to the resolution of the Farmers’ Union—“ That agricultural industries he exempted from the working of the Arbitration Act.’’ Our contemporary begs the _ whole question in the first sentence of the following extract from its article:—“lf the Arbitration Act is a good thing for our urban population, as in the absence of an y complaint from the Farmers’ Union or any other body Parliament must assume it to be, why is it to be re- • garded as injurious to the country? If the city worker needs and profits by its protection, why deny the same privilege to the agricultural labourer'? If the latter is underpaid—we do not assert that he is—he is, like the sweated children of the dairy, simply adding to the already inflated value of the land on which be works. When Parliament does its duty by the country children, whose future is at being sacrificed on the altar of the ‘great god Cow,’ and insists upon their having time enough and rest enough to enable them to acquire the education necessary for good citizenship, the rent of the ground,landlord will correspondingly diminish. Similarly, if the adult agricultural worker is now underpaid, any increased wage which the Arbitration Act may bring him’will fall upon the land. What then? If these wrongs exist, are they to be perpetuated in order that the present values of land may be maintained? or is it best that justice should be done, and the price of land fall? For most people fair pay for the man, and humane treatment for the children, will appear higher objects than maintaining the price of land, and we do not suggest that the members of the Farmers’ Union are fairly chargeable with cherishing a lower standard of justice and humanity. But they look at the matter from .the standpoint of those who have to make a living out of the land, to whom the interference of the Arbitration Court is an impertinence and a nuisance, and who in many cases would doubtless have personally to bear the burden of an award without being able to pass any of it on. Individual hardships of this kind must always arise in the case of any general readjustment; ■yet, unless the Farmers’ Union is prepared to maintain either that the Arbitration Court is usually the dispenser of justice, or that the agricultural employer at present enjoys an advantage over his employees to which ho is not justly entitled, how can it maintain as a universal proposition, or even as a general rule, that the operation of the Act will mean the ruin of the farming interests?” In the first place, we may

point out that the Arbitration Act i has not been “a good thing for our j urban population, ’ ’ because it has been largely instrumental in increasing the cost of living. It needs , little argument to show that if con- j Burners have to pay more for supplies j because factory hands obtain increased wages, work shorter hours, and limit their output, the consumers certainly do not. benefit —and all the “urban population” are consumers. One reason why the farmers object to the Act applying to agricultural industries is because they see the evil effects of its working in the towns. Another reason is that they realise that they cannot “pass it on” to their customers when they have to pay more for the production of grain, wool, or dairy produce. The cold-blooded manner in which the city journal rather gloats over the prospect of a fall in the value of land must be appalling to every farmer, especially to those whose properties are mortgaged, because if the value of the security falls it means immediate ruin. It is astounding that these city journals do not realise that as all the wealth comes from the country lands, every effort should be made to improve the position of the wealth-creators, and that anything that handicaps or injures them also injures the towns. Yet, strange to say, even these city journals are jubilant when wool or other produce of country land rises in value, because they know it means greater prosperity. Why do they not realise that as a rise in price of produce only means a larger marign of profit for' the producer, that margin would be available, even without the rise in value, if the cost of production was lowered in the same proportion? But they would increase thp cost of production, and reduce the value of the land into which the farmer has put his capital, and to which lie is applying his industry and skill.

IN order to Justify the creation of the State Fire Insurance Department it was necessary to force down the premium rates, but it "is evident that this was done at considerable risk, and that it will not he long before the public will have to pay increased premiums, which will naturally be heavier than before, because of the new State company which has to he maintained by the insuring public. The report just presented to Parliament shows that the revenue last year was : 820,963, as compared with £13,127 for 1905, but all that remins to credit of profit and loos account is £699. . The general manager, after estimating that the public have saved £200,000 per annum in premiums, because all the companies now charge the same rates as the State, sounds a warning as to increased rates by saying, “Though the prevailing rates of premium presumably are highly satisfactory to the insuring public, in view of the fact that they are very much below what they wore prior to the advent of the State Fire Insurance Office, nevertheless experience has shown that they are lower than they should be. and this fact lias bean very much impressed upon the private insurance companies, whose competition has failed to make the State office lose heavily, as they anticipated, although necessarily their action reduced its profit results by some £12,000. ’ ’ Apparently the State does not care whether it loses or not, so long as the private offices also lose. The fact mentioned that the premiums are lower than they should he, and that this lias been impressed on the private companies, merely indicates that the rates are below the margin for profit or safety, and that unless they are increased then the general taxpayer will have to bear part of the cost of insuring people in the State Company.