Suggested Raid On Farm Incomes

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 84, 20 August 1948, Page 5

Suggested Raid On Farm Incomes

LABOUR MEMBERS' NEW PROPOSITION Recently, seven Labour members of Parliament asked the Minister of Finance if he would favourably consider deducting from the new scale of prices for primary products the equivalent of the amount of money value which was represented by the operation of the existing exchange rate and applying it to the partial repayment of the internal national debt and to subsidising various commodities on the local market. In reply, the Minister (Mr Nash) said any such deduction would be a breach of the agreement between the Farmers' Federation and the Government. The question and the reply were commented upon by Mr W. Sullivan. He said that those'who had asked the question wanted to reduce the income of the farmers by 25 per cent. Assuming the exports of primary produce amounted to £100,000,COO, the proposal would mean that the total paid to farmers would be reduced to £80,000,000. Farmers did not hoard capital but used it for the development of their land, for employment and to increase production.

Those members were not prepared to deal with the exchange rate on a flat basis to cover everyone, but wanted to sort out one section, the primary poducers, and to take the exchange benefit from them. Referring to aid for Britain, Mr Sullivan said that while the farmers were producing more, other sections of the community were producing l-'SS and some people wanted to reduce the farmers' return by 25 pe~ c*nt. The whole thing was ridiculous. The proposal would injure tbe farming industry, retard development, reduce exports and simultaneously reduce imports. The Labour Government had deprived the farmer of £35,000,000 in New Zealand currency. The added exchange on the price of his commodity was his by right,~and. any attempt to take away that 25 per cent from the farmer would be injurious to the economy of the whole country.