Waihi Telegraph WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE WAIHI MINER SATURDAY, JANUARY 7, 1928. GOVERNMENT IN BUSINESS

Waihi Daily Telegraph, Volume XXV, Issue 7614, 7 January 1928, Page 2

Waihi Telegraph WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE WAIHI MINER

SATURDAY, JANUARY 7, 1928. GOVERNMENT IN BUSINESS

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We wait with interest details of the subsidy which the Prime Minister, just before Christmas, promised to pig farmers. For the moment the principal detail is the sum of £30,000 for this year, which is a sheer gift out of the public purse to the pig farmer, and that detail is sufficient for present comment. The subsidy was naturally received by pig farmers as seasonable “tidings of comfort and joy," Its object is to reimburse farmers exporting pork fqr any loss they may incur in th'elr venture into a market already pverrpn by Contin? ental and Irish competitors! gpeajcing at Hawera on this subsidy, Mr Hawken said it was a “new departure.” It is indeed; and a most pernicious one, economically considered. Pork is a by-product of the New Zealand dairy industry. So is casein, so is milk powder. But it would be just as reasonable for the manufacturers of either or both of those articles to ask and expect to be subsidised out of the public funds in order tjia.t they Cap be rendered immune from the competition of Dutch, Danish and other competitors in the world's market, Is the country, through the Government, fg be compelled to make good all losses? It looks very much like it. There Is no reason to suppose that pork prices

in the British or other overseas mar kejls are so likely to improve in tin future that shipping Home this com ing season )yi]l be attended with an) better results; there is p,ot the slight cst shadow of a reason to expect tliai prices are going to improve when the subsidy, which Mr Hawken told Taranaki farmers is to last for three years, has expired. On the contrary it is only too evident in this commodity; as in butter and cheese, “a period of fierce competition is before us,” exactly ua Mr Grounds pointed out when he returned to Ne*v Zealand as a delegate of the Dairy Hoard at the cud fo 1924. The lay of supply and demand fixes the price of pork as ii, /)x,c.s the price of most oilier necessary coniip.oiji.ties. and Doth ing tliai (ho Government may /)<» in .(jlcfianco of that law can be .dono except ft the great cost .of the people of ifiis pominipu'as a whole, if the principle gt subsidising p.orjk is ig establish ft precedent, apd tji.ose igr tereated in other exports capppt .fig blamed for bo regarding it, what will he the end of it? What about honey, kauri gum,,fruit, flax, rabbitskius, sausage skins, tallow and pelts, and a hundred and one articles exported from New Zealand, all taking the risk of the world’s markets?