FARMERS' COMPENSATED PRICES

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 68, 7 April 1937, Page 4

FARMERS' COMPENSATED PRICES

That dairy farmers of the Dominion can put up a very good case for better prices for dairy produce than are current now under the guara^nteed price scheme is an opinion expressed by the N.Z. Mercantile Gazette, which says: The scheme itself is uneconomic and harmful, hut the scheme must he accepted as it sfcands, and the fagmers are not receiving the compensation Avhich they were led to expect. They are, of course, getting prices hased on the average of eight or ten years, and, if it stopped at that, their position would have been sajtisfactory. But the farmers, through the Farmers' Union, agreed to pay higher farm wages, but they did not, or could not, see that this would he only part of their increased costs. Now they find that through raising the 'general level of wages and shortening the hours of work there has been a » further addition to their costs, considerably reducing the margin under the guaranteed price scheme. Moreover, they find that they have to "compete for labour. They cannot afford the wages that men can earn on public works ■ and so they a)re suffering. Now they want the Government, when renewing the commandeer of dairy produce, to fix the price at a point which would cover the increased and increasing costs the farmer has to ,meet. This seems quite fair, for it is a situation created by the Government and not by the farmers.