AT THE TEA TABLE.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLV, Issue 12017, 6 March 1920, Page 5

AT THE TEA TABLE.

SOME TOPICAL TALKS. “I thought we should soon see some curious developments of that arbitrary fixing of prices, ” remarked the Critic. “You can no more successfully interfere with the law of supply and demand than you could with the law of gravity The State has not even a moral right to make such stupid attempts. They may appear to succeed for a time, if the victims are weak, or if their reserves of capital will enable them to stand the spoliation and oppression, but in the efid the position must be reached when the victim must either cease to serve the community or go bankrupt. The bakers are the first to realise that the limit has been reached, and they now declare that they cannot bake bread at the price fixed, and will no longer do it. They are quite within their rights. ’■ “But are they not supposed to provide, the people with the staff of life?” asked the Landlady. “Is not that why they were permitted to carry on business?”

“Get those foolish notions out of your head,” said the Critic, “Why should they feed the people at a loss to themselves? Are they not entitled to a profit the same as others? It is well known that for a long time they have been barely making a profit on bread, and have had to rely on the pastrycook aide of their businesses to enable them to pay their way. The wonder is that they have borne the burden so long, but the latest fixing has evidently been the last straw on the baker camel’s back.”

“Then you would let them fix their own priced?” queried the Spinster. ‘‘Most assuredly,” said the Cynic. “Does not the worker and every unionist fix the price of what he has to sell? Moreover in-the case of the baker and the butcher, as well as the grocer, draper and others, there is no necessity to fix prices. The competition among them 'ensures that articles 'will be sold only at prices that will yield fair profit. If there is combination to extort higher prices that becomes quite another thing. I may remark, however, in regard to this that there are plenty of combines in operation for that purpose, in very big lines, and these are not chocked. It is only the unfortunate people who 6 prepare food for the public who are kept in subjection. Why should the bakers be made white slaves, or compelled to work for nothing? I hope that what is going on'will be a lesson to the politicians to cease interfering in matters that do not come within the function of goverment. Trade of all kinds should bo kept absoln tely free from Government interference.”

“But was it not a good thing for ns when Mr Massey some time ago provided against a shortage by buying wheat from outside?” asked the Landlady. “.No, Madam, it was not,” said the Sage. “We had to pay dearly for that, and it might fittingly have been loft to the merchants to secure the stocks. We should probablv have got off much cheaper. What really did happen was that the taxpayers had to bear a large part of the cost of feeding all the people, and in this country the real taxpayers are very greatly in the minority. Practically the whole of that cost falls eventually on the users of the land. It certainly does not fall on the class that has had so much indirect tax lifted off its shoulders and placed on those of the earners of taxable incomes and the owners 'of land,” $ “Seems to me,” said the Cynic, “that class robbery has been perpetrated on a rather large scale for some time past, and also by those who have been foremost in accusing others, ’ ’

“The Methodist Conference at Sydney haa expressed the opinion,” remarked the Sage, “that the church should aim at Christianising industrial relations so that industry will become# religious experience. This seems to me to be like advocating a return to the possibly happier days when sincere faith really actuated the large majority of the thinkers, wh?n vast cathedrals were erected, and costly shrines were established to quicken the religious sense of the worshippers. In those days too the monks piously averred that ‘Labour is Praver. ’ ”

“That is the ancient equivalent of the modern Methodist opinion,” said the Critic. “I am afraid, howover, that their pronouncements will be regarded as so many platitudes, and that the workers are likely to give too little attention to the preachers and too much to the praters of the gospel of ‘Do-little and Grab Much.’ "

“They regard labour more as play than as prayer,” said the Cynic. “They are even trying ;o alter the Commandments by providing that ‘live daj'a shalt thou work, ’ or rather ‘go slow. ’ .What will be the use of preaching the brotherhood of man to the lazy who are dominated and deceived by the Lords of Labour? These will never be content with a share in the profits of business, for in most cases they are getting more than that now, at the expense either of the employer or the paying public. As to the risks, it those resulted in loss they 1 * would vanish away, like rats from a sinking ship. I doubt it oven the w 7 hole of the profits would satisfy them; they would then want to seize all the assets, as the new Socialists of Russia have done. ”

* “I think it would. ;jbe a good thing to allow ncfhe but "prohibitionists—l mean genuine practising prohibitionists—to dwell in our Cook Islands dependency," said the Critic, "It must be galling to the lordly native chief to know that he is debarred from-using that which ‘white trash’ can obtain freely. The tinted gentleman will not reflect that as the beachcomber only makes a beast of himself he is better without it”

"Even the guileless native loves liberty?, ” said the Cynic, "but in the earlier stages of his civilisation he must, like a child, be protected against himself. ”

"That Yankee'aviator soared high the other day,” said the Critic, "but although ho reached seven miles, the Britishers got there before him. In 1862 Glaisher and Coxweil, in their balloon, reached a similar height and went through similar severe experiences. When almost at the last gasp Glaisher managed to get his teeth on the valve line, and caused the balloon to descend.” "I guess,” said the Cynic, ‘‘the Yankee probably got as hear heaven as a man can do now in that dry land, though why they call it dry I don’t know, because the* people are

like the Ancient Mariner, with ‘water, water every where, ancl not a drop to drink!” A JATE PBNNE.