FEARS IN OTAGO

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20070, 17 October 1939, Page 4

FEARS IN OTAGO

SOCIALISATION AIM FARMING INDUSTRY CESSATION OF WAR # STATE POLICY WANTED (Per Press Association.) DUNEDIN, this day. While admitting and accepting the necessity for a war-time commandeer of produce, particularly wool, and expressing no dissatisfaction with the price agreed upon between the Dominion and British Governments, a representative meeting of farmers from all parts of Otago yesterday showed keen resentment of the possibility of such a commandeer becoming permanent at the conclusion of hostilities. The action of the Minister of Finance, the Hon. W. Nash, in evading a direct question of a member of the House concerning the probable duration of Government control of the pastoral industries has led to a definite fear that the Government’s intention is the complete socialisation of primary production. It was this feeling that gave rise to protests yesterday. The actual question of the wool prices was not the subject of objection, one speaker declaring, with apparently general approval, that farmers would be more than satisfied to get their costs back, while those who could afford it would not mind “going back a bit.” Resisting Socialisation The following resolution was carried unanimously after some very downright comments on what was regarded to be the Government’s intention: —“While farmers in Otago are prepared to do their full share to prosecute the war to a successful conclusion, they are determined to resist to the utmost any effort made for the socialisation of their industry and, in this respect, they demand an assurance that the Government handling of wool and meat, rendered necessary as a result of the war, will be confined strictly to the period of hostilities or to a brief period thereafter; in other words, we demand that the ordinary channels of trade be kept intact so that the existing system of marketing may be reverted to immediately after the war.” A further resolution dealing with the producers’ representatives on the marketing organisations, was carried ns follows:—"This meeting demands that authorised representatives of primary producing bodies be consulted and be actively associated with the overseas marketing arrangements for our produce, and that they be given representation on the central organisation set up by the Government to control exports.”