EFFECT ON FARMER

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 138, 8 December 1938, Page 20

EFFECT ON FARMER

mr. pcmsoN?s ymms

«ftDVIfteEro«BEI%IN"

(By Telegraph—Press Association.) NEW PLYMOUTH, December 7.

The effect on the farmer of the Government's exchange control measures was the subject of a statement tonight by Mr. W. J. Poison, chairman oJ the Primary Producers' Federation of New Zealand, who characterised the Government's policy as an advance to Berlin, with rationed imports and control of exports on the approved Hitler plan.

"It has apparently become the New Zealand farmer's fate to buy at high prices and sell'at low," said Mr. Poison. "Now ,we are committed to this new policy and no amount of guarantee manipulation will solve this difficulty. The farmer is caught in a trap conceived in antagonism to and devised in defiance of economic laws and from which, now that it has been sprung, there is no present escape, even by the operation of amputating the limb which Mr. Nash has skilfully undertaken. "The Government formerly appeared to believe it could insulate New Zealand against world conditions and create a local Utopia without sacrificing anybody. It set out to pursue the Moscow road to that end by currency manipulation and the use of the national credit in contempt of. orthodoxy, but now it has retreated from Moscow and is advancing to Berlin with rationed imports and regimentation and control of exports on the approved Hitler plan. "Apparently our rulers are not very clear about their course and have not a reliable compass. To say the least, it does not inspire confidence. All production must suffer as a result, both primary and secondary, because, though increasing costs first affect primary industries, they ultimately paralyse secondary as well. It will not be possible to have a 'speed-up and produce more' programme with this additional handicap, and this constitutes an alarming feature of the new policy. More production, particularly export production, would have been a possible way. out with reasonable conditions for producers, but no one has discovered a formula for making. this work both ways here and at the same time keeping the customer at the other end of the world. High costs do not go- with competitive prices. Farmers can only hope that, though their experience will be bitter, it will at least be educational nationally."