WELLINGTON NEWS

Hokitika Guardian, 15 May 1926, Page 1

WELLINGTON NEWS

DEFEATED AVOOLGROAVERS. (Special to “ Guardian.”) WELLINGTON, AI ay 12. On the strength of learning that six Levin wool-growers were about to walk off their properties defeated, Air AV. G. Adkin, another farmer of Levin, has written a lengthy epistle to one of the Wellington papers in which he tilts at the prices obtained for crossbred wool. He begins hv saying that in his experience of 40 years in Now Zealand wool has always been sold at less than two-thirds of its sterling value. That is if the man at the genesis of the trade got any fair share in an industry, which provides a good living for any other individual occupied in the progress of wool as an animal product from the sheep’s hack to the wearer of finished woollens. “ Taking the average yearly product of wool in this Dominion at a real value of 7.V millions of money, for the past 40 years and reckoning Yorkshire has got away with it for o millions a year-—a loss of 100 millions to the sheepfarmers in those 40 years.” He contends that the robbery does not take place this side of the water, hut that huge and mysterious profits are taken on the other side, and it" the great sheep industry of New Zealand is not to die out, something must be done, and the something suggested by him is that the Government in conjunction with the woolgrowers select two of the keenest detectives in the Empire and instruct them to pursue investigations regardless of" cost till they find every detail of exploitation, expose every piece of humbug about the cost of manufacture, many processes, labour costs, etc., and lot daylight into the haunts of the profiteer, and then find a remedy for both growers’ and consumers’ benefit. There

is nothing new about this suggestio

for almost everyone who has an absurd proposal to make wants a Royal Commission to investigate, but this particular commission of detectives is to operate regardless of cost. There is of course another side to the picture—

the farmers who have walked off their forms have apparently done so been vise they were unable to pay their way. 1 hat has been the case in other parts of the Dominion, and investigations show that considerably more than economic or productive value of the land was paid, and a heavy mortgage

1 load taken up. Such farmers could t carry on only in time of inflated prices • which do not last. They have no powers of resistance when prices drop, for they - have no margin to come and go on. The wool buyers of Yorkshire may read- ' iI.V retort that it is not wool that is cheap, but that land is too dear. In any ease it must not be overlooked that in spite of the alleged low price of wool the (locks of the Dominion have increased. The remedy does not lie at the other end, hut is to be found in New Zealand. Land values are not on an economic basis, and until they are there will ho trouble. Tclire is another point too. and that is the ability of the farmer to farm his land successfully and economically. Wool is a world commodity. Other countries produce the staple, and if we cannot produce as cheaply we must not complain of losses, hut find ways and means of reducing costs. THE OUTLOOK FOR RUTTER. The latest information from. London respecting dairy produce is not very encouraging. The Board of Trade has fixed prices at the level of the prestrike period, and with the difficulties of transport Hie distribution is limited "Lb the result that supplies are accumulating. Non Zealand butter will keep sound in cold store for a considerable time, and if it were New Zen la lit I butter alone that remained to be marketed after the strike, the business would he cjiiito a simple matter. But unfortunately European supplies are coming forward or are available in increasing quantities, and those butlers will come into conflict with the New Zealand product to the detriment, of the falter. Cable advices state that Ihe indications are that a decline in prices will take place lor both butter and cheese when the strike is settled, as Home supplies and also from the Continent are accumulating rapidly. The statistical position of both New Zealand and Australian butter was good, but whatever advantage accrued from that is now lost. If prices do-

dine when the strike is settled as seems certain, it will take a long time to bring about a recovery, because the heavy Continental make will he preserved tor sale. The wisdom of the policy of withholding supplies from, the market to create an artificially high price i.s hound to he seriously criticised ami the changed conditions of the mar-

ket may have unexpected results in New Zealand. The dairy produce outlook is certainly not verv encouraging at the moment.