EXCESSIVE COSTS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 167, 17 July 1942, Page 6

EXCESSIVE COSTS

AND INADEQUATE PRICE DAIRY FARMERS' PROBLEM (0.C.) WHANGAREI, this day. Although the id increase on the guaranteed price was welcome, farmers had a right to expect equal treatment and consideration of their costs, with other workers awarded two cost of living increases, states Mr. G. A. Appleton in his annual report of the Northland Dairy conference. Representatives of the Industry had advanced a modest claim for 10 per cent on the labour award element in Mr. Nash's last compilation when fixing the guaranteed price in 1938, plus a further amount for any increase in costs ascertainable by a special committee to be constituted, he said. To cover the foregoing increase at least 3d was considered necessary.

It was clear that the Dairy Industry Council in its negotiations was opposed by complete indifference to the producer's fate, or possibly by fixed prejudice in the minds of those responsible for the decision that the dairyman was already receiving sufficient income. There was no justification by calculation or argument for the new price. Clearly the price payable was entirely limited to the amount received for produce overseas, placing the producer in the precise position he was in before the introduction of the fixed price plan, and before Government policy lifted internal costs to a high level. All the so-called concessions were the farmers' own money resulting from the sale of his produce, impressed by the Government. The exigencies of war, added Mr. Appleton, had given the producer a taste of complete bureaucratic control, revealing the extent to which he had lost the leadership and control of his own industry. Farmers remembered that his subordination was Instituted in peacetime, and on return to normal it will be their aim to restore to the producer his former position of ownership and free disposal.