FARMING COSTS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 57, Issue 247, 30 July 1937, Page 6

FARMING COSTS

COMPENSATED PRICE CAMPAIGN ADDRESS TO FARMERS’ UNION. COLONEL CLOSEY’S CAMPAIGN. The compensated price, and other matters of interest to farmers, were dealt with in an address to the MidCanterbury Executive of the Farmers’ Union this afternoon by Colonel S. J. E. Closey, who is organiser of the compensated price campaign and lias delivered addresses to branches of the iFarmers’ Union throughout the country. The president (Mr L. Oakley), who presided over a small attendance, 'said it was the speaker’s first visit to Mid-Canterbury. Colonel Closey said the compensated price campaign was a movement which 'was endeavouring to unite all farmers together in a common body. There was one grievance that attended every branch of farming, and that was that the farmer had to sell cheaply and buy dearly. This disability bad to be dealt with, and the speaker said he had made a special point of showing how the gap between constant prices had affected farming. The speaker used a diagram to show how farm income had fallen below farm costs. The exports of butter had increased two and a-half times in seven years, and the 40,000 men who had done this were in difficulty to keep on their farms. The claim could be justified that the farmer had a grievance. If it could be agreed that this gap in prices was the mobilising point ol farmers in New Zealand, the next thing that had to be found was how to close this gap. The time had raised the cost ol living, and the Arbitration Court liacl raised wages. There had been an ascending spiral of prices for 30 years and goods in New Zealand now cost, onethird to three-quarters more than they did in the United Kingdom. The North Island had recognised that costs had to come down against high tariff. The farmer had found himself fighting with His back to the wall against the demands of better organised sections of the community, and that w T as why he was always known as the man with a grouch, because he had satisfied these demands before bis own. The Search for a Remedy. In seeking for a remedy tho compensated price had been hit upon. There was a determination to press upon tho Government the Bill for the two products they had taken, butter and cheese. When the farmer exported nothing but goods came back again, and an examination had to he made of what goods came back for the farmers’ work, and what his products were worth in New Zealand. The exporting farmer set the pace and the level for all other farmers. The gap between the cost of living and the value of produce was crippling farming. 1 “Would we recommend a fight upon wages?” asked the speaker. He said farmers knew the opposition of the unions. The manufacturers were better organised and they had formed a working arrangement with trade unions. Theret should not be a fight against other sections of the community, but pressure should be exerted on the point where power existed. The part that the farmer played in the New Zealand economy had to be known, otherwise cheap criticism would be heard that what was given to the farmer was taken from other people. There was no other source of wealth and material but land in New Zealand or any other country. Eleven-twelfths of New Zealand’s material production came from the land, and there was no point in building other industries up, because they were mel-ely subsidiaries. Ruin swept through New Zealand when the farm income dropped. Could the community afford to let it drop again? Unless farming could keep going steadily, the very foundation of New Zealand’s financial structure would shrink and collapse. The gap between prices and cost could be reduced in four ways —by reducing tariff, taxation or wages, or by building up the income of the farmer. The country was taxed to the extent of 17.8 million pounds in 1929. The Government had now 10,000,000 more pounds in taxation, and there was no distress. Could it not be claimed that the position could he eased by reducing the emergency taxation? The money spent on railways and housing could if applied to farming give increased land for production, more irrigation, or'a top-dressing 13 times greater than the money spent on top-dressing in 1934. Every unit in the country would he affected by building up the farmers’ own prosperity. No one had any right to say that by helping the farmer there would he a sacrifice of any other interest. Excess taxes amounted to £6,000,000, unemployment taxes to £4,000,000, new railways cost £5,000,000, and the housing plan cost £1,500,000. If this money were used to build up the farming industry there would be no unemployment.