FARMERS AND THEIR PRODUCE

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2983, 22 January 1917, Page 8

FARMERS AND THEIR PRODUCE

THE SHIPPING: PROBLEM )

A FIVE MILLION SOLUTION

By Telegraph--Special Correspondent. . _" "".' Wanganui/ January 20. !A! question, of great importance to the producers of the Dominion was. disat a meeting of the Taranaki • executive of the Farmers' Union, namo- ! ly, that of establishing a farmers' line of Bbips. It will be remembered • that a couple of months ago it was suggested at a meeting of the executive that the farmers throughout New Zenland should combine and raise something like £5,000,000 and establish their own fleet of Bteamers to carry _, their produco .overseas. The Marlborough Farmers' Union seized upon the project as a good one, and is now circularising farmers' unions throughout the Dominion, asking for co-opera-Jtion and support. A resolution to , this effect was read at the meeting of the Taranaki Executive. * In explanation of the-resolution, it •was pointed out that, the suggestion was that a Producers' Shipping Company should bo formed with a capital of £5,000,000, of which £3.000,000 should be subscribed and £1,500,000 paid up. No shares should be allotted ' to anyone who was not a bona-fide producer. Sir Jas. Wilson would be , asked to call a conference of delegates

from each provincial executive in Nev Zealand. The chairman (Mr. R. Dunn) men tioned that a similar project was moot ed in Taranaki\ recently, and he wa: .one' of a committee appointed to g( further into tho matter. Five mil ...lions was a, big sum to talk of raising -•in- the Dominion at the present time and he did not think they would ge' it voluntarily. In seconding the motion—"That th< Dominion Conference be asked to mak< this a special subject for their nexi • meeting—to make it in fact the im portant business of the year—and thai the executive take such steps ■ with re ' gard to the necessary preparatory worl as they think fit in connection there with," Mr. Buckeridge -pointed' ou that the people who were directly in terested were the people who shoulc taokle this question of shipping freights. It was the business of the producers, and he had-been for the last twenty years trying to awaken in farmers sufficient interest to induce them to regard 'their enterprise as a business concern. He was quite convinced that £5,000,000 would be a good sum to start with,. ,but -it was not going to be anything like sufficient for all their_ requirements:'. The. control of the shipping of their produce should be in the producers' hands until it arrived on the reajket. but at present it ■ Was not. Take, for example,. meat. -Often it was out of farmers' hands .before it left his farm, and in New Zealand some of the freezing companies -were interested in the shipping companies, so that a Producers' Shipping Company, such as that suggested, would have to fight very powerful combinations, and five millions was not

going to be ioo_ much with which to 'fight-them. This question of shipping was hedged about with innumerable difficulties, and if anything was going

to bo accomplished it would only be by means of concerted action throughout New Zealand. There would bo Lugo corporations with immense capital and vested interests against 'them and if farmers were going to tackle them with any show of success they had .'to" be assured that they were absolutely consolidated. The motion was carried.