The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1931. ABOUT A PHRASE.

Southland Times, Issue 21580, 18 December 1931, Page 6

The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1931. ABOUT A PHRASE.

To-day unfortunately the public is ready to read into phrases more than they actually mean, and that explains the criticism of the Governor- General’s speech in Stratford expressing the hope that when prosperity returns “action would be taken to prevent undue profits being made by people not actually engaged in winning wealth from the soil." No one could take any objection to such a statement, because the winning of “undue” profits will be condemned by everyone, even if those undue profits were made by people actually engaged in winning wealth from the land, but the member of the Christchurch Manufacturers’ Association who protested against his Excellency’s remarks saw in them what many readers undoubtedly will, a suggestion that there is a danger of undue profits being made at the expense of the man on the soil. The term “profits” is extremely difficult to interpret because it covers so much, and is subject to so many qualifications. In the abstract it is comforting, but considered as a concrete reward of industry it is the victim of many subtractions and many misunderstandings. It is easy to see that the Manufacturers’ Association is concerned about the suggestion that its prices may be too high, and its tenderness might be found in other branches of industry where the failure of prices to recede is accepted as proof of undue profits. The public is inclined to overlook the multiplicity of outside influences which affect the retailers’ price list. He has to bear the increased weight of taxation and to submit to the enlarged cost arising out of adverse exchanges, for practically every secondary industry has to import materials, tools or machinery from overseas, and some businesses have been compelled to pay from 20 per cent, to 50 per cent, more for the materials they use compared with the figures of a year ago, and they have to accept the fact that these heavier overhead charges are borne by a reduced turnover. The assumption that secondary industries and the various distributing concerns, wholesale and retail, are not being severely punished, has a wide incidence and it is incorrect. In the circumstances any phrase which seems to endorse that mistaken view is resented, but Lord Bledisloe’s remarks, reasonably construed, cannot justify that criticism. It would have been more dignified and certainly more convincing, if the members of the Christchurch Manufacturers’ Association had explained what the phrase “undue profits” did and did not mean. There need be no nervousness on the score of undue profits when prosperity returns, because the country will be sufficiently critical to prevent anything of the kind being achieved; but there is an urgent need for a better understanding of the position of the secondary industries, and a recognition of the fact that through their revival the bulk of the relief workers can be re-absorbed in regular employment.