ONCE MORE THE DOORMAT.

Observer, Volume XL, Issue 9, 1 November 1919, Page 3

ONCE MORE THE DOORMAT.

Is Trodden On

IF the pioneers of the New Zealand butter industry, who helped to establish our commerce on the basis of fourpence a pound, could be dug up and have a modern newspaper read to them, they would again collapse with heart disease. The New Zealand Government is about to charge New Zealanders for the butter they ate—or didn't eat— during the war. It is called "the equalisation" system, by which the Government apologises for having fixed a price, and decides now the war is over, to make us, our children, and our grandchildren, pay large bonuses to present-day people who do not appear to require the money half as much as the people who are to be made to pay it.

The whole of the people' are to supply £170,000, and specious journalists, and no less specious politicians, are making the welkin ring by declaring that it is merely a matter of justice to hand out a great bonus. It is pointed out in various places that the price of butter was fixed during the war by the Government "to keep the cost, of living down." The logic of this is that the way to keep the cost of living down is to pretend you're selling an article to a man for sixpence in 1917 and to send him in a bill for the extra threepence later on.

Governments in many countries during the war fixed prices which they considered offered a fair profit to sellers and a fair deal to buyers. As far as this one item of butter is concerned in New Zealand, the position might be illustrated thus. Say you to that old doormat, an average member of the public, "Ain't you grateful to a fatherly Government for having fixed the price of butter during the war?" And the doormat replies, "Even though the Government fixed the price, it was too expensive for me to buy—so I didn't buy any." And you reply to the doormat, "Very well, then, you've got to pay your proportion of the one hundred and seventy thousand pounds for the butter you didn't get during the war."

"By various devices known to statecraft," says a Government, "we have got a whole raft of money m the Treasury. Mr. Butterfat moves at a meeting of the company of which he is so valued an ornament, that the Government take a large quantity of this money and give it to one class of producer—so we will do it. It doesn't matter to us whether the public wishes to give its money away to this class of people—for the public has no say in the deal—it has simply to pay and look pleasant."

If you acknowledge the justice of dipping into the peoples' pockets for a large bonus to one class of people, you acknowledge that to dip into the peoples' pockets, for any other class is simple justice, too. You might get an amalgamation of sel-

In short, it has been shown that the general body—poor and rich alike—but mostly poor—seeing that they are in the majority, should always be taxed to pay bonuses to those who own the most money and goods. By an extension of the system of equalisation the Government could demand that bread should be a penny a loaf during 1920 and in 1921 tax the general mass to provide bakers with a bonus, bringing it up to any sum that might be considered just—might, in fact, rob the Treasury of a million or so to placate the bread-selling patriots.

The price of meat to be sold to the public is being fixed. Mr. Massoy has vetoed the threatened rise of threepence per pound on bacon. If the Government or its successor is true to the "equalisation" system the suffering beef emperors, mutton kings, and pig rajahs will be asking the Doormat next year for a million or two pounds to compensate them for the loss they are sustaining now. It will be fair to tax the person who hates pig to supply the deficiency, the vegetarian will be asked to find part of the "equalisation" fees that in justice must be given to the floshers, and so forth.

If for any reason the Government in the future should not have sufficient revenue to pay bonuses to trusts operating throughout New Zealand, and controlling food, a grateful public having been asked to believe that it has been generously treated, may raise purses of sovereign's for chairmen of directors of food trusts. The new method will have the effect of distinguishing the classes, for by- "greasing the fat sow" we shall be able to create an aristocracy of wealth sustained by rubbing new taxes into, the Doormat whenever the Doormat can be trodden on.

The intensely meek public of New Zealand is so used to be trodden on that never a squeak will come from it. It will look with sorrow on its diminishing pound, and hand it over in simple justice to the man who is suffering with a plethora of pounds.