OUR PRODUCT.

Southland Times, Issue 18963, 9 June 1923, Page 8

OUR PRODUCT.

To the Editor. Sir, —We have been asked through the mednium of the newspapers to eat less mutton and more beef. The reason given is that it does not pay to export beef, because we can not compete against the chilled beef from the Argentine and other States in South America. Again we read anent 40, 000 carcases of mutton being shipped back to Australia from London, and that the shipping charges will be l|d per lb, which is a very small item compared with the costs of handling and the costs of returning same to England. Another ponit worthy of consideration is that this 40,000 carca&s would not give one meal to everyone in London alone. Therefore what is the reason or sense of going to the expense of reshipping this small consignment of meat. To me it seems that there is only one reason and that is the supply of mutton in England has exceeded the demand, which means a reduction in prices, or that the late rise in prices have been caused by controls, and not by natural consumption. After all previous wars there have been slumps and low prices for products, also reduction in wages. “History will repeat itself,” and few wall venture to dispute the accuracy of this statement. The conditions prevailing to-day are practically the same as existed a hundred years ago, then as now Parliaments and sections of the people endeavoured to find short cuts for recovery from great wars,, and so we have Government controls, embargoes, pools, Labour unions, and about every method of restriction and hampering of trade or selling, while what the world requires is freedom in selling. In the early part of a number of bankers in England signed a petition to Parliament, for the removal of all restraint on free interchange of commodities, and this is how the petition commenced: “A hundred years ago, in a time of great depression following a great war, the merchants of London petitioned Parliament against anti-commercial principles of the restriction system then in force. To-day we are loaded with, by far heavier taxation than the people of a hundred years ago. These taxes must be paid, thereby leaving less money for buying with and consequentially the seller must receive less for what ever he has to sell.” Your readers may say that I am a pessimist, but I am not. I am quite sure that 8/- per day bought more commodities, necessaries of pleasure ten years ago, than what 13/- to-day will buy. Therefore, why try and do the impossible and keep up prices. Our primary producers must expect a big drop in some, if not all of our products; our dairy product has slumped since April last and is down for a long period. It is staggering to think what would happen to our butter market if Russia and Siberia were again to start supplying the English market with quantities, which they did ten years ago. The civilised world to-day are all buyers and sellers; if we have nothing else to sell we sell our labour, others sell that capital which is only the surplus or store up of previous labours. Buying in the cheapest market and selling in the dearest, which regulates every merchant in his individual business, is the best method in trade between nations. Foreign commerce conduces to the wealth and prosperity of a country by enabling it to import the commodities which other countries are better able to supply and to export in payment than articles which, from its own situation, it is best adapted to produce. Do we follow out this rule? The answer is “no.” Take wheat and flour. This industry has been protected for many years and is still in swaddling clothes and still needs protection ? swaddling clothes and still needs protection. Does it not in effect give to sellers the right to exploit the buyer? Can this be defended on political or economic grounds. Political interference with the natural,course of commerce without regard to economic law invariably does mischief. The advocates of protection, control, embargo and other restrictive systems are too apt to lose sight of the elementary fact that nations buy foreign goods, not to benefit others, but to benefit themselves, and pay for them by production of goods which the foreigner, in his turn, requires. “Trade is exchange.” No nation which lives by trading with others can prosper, unless other nations prosper too. The time for the people to demand the freedom of trade with other nations is now. A league, or association, or guild should be formed to agitate for the removal of all trade restrictions. I am, etc., A. GORDON. Gore, June 7, 1923.