WELLINGTON NEWS

Hokitika Guardian, 23 June 1927, Page 4

WELLINGTON NEWS

A LIGHTER OUTLOOK. (Special to “ Guardian.”) WELLINGTON', June 2u. Speaking at the smoko concert held in connection with ALuiawatu A. and P. Show, the .Minister lor Agriculture tlion. A. G. Ilaukiuij, stated that : “L do not think that things in tit" farming industry are as had its people make them out to he. J he lie re that farmers

have come to the point where they cart go ahead, and I feel confident that in nearly every branch the farmer is down to bedrock. I think there is to he n change for the hotter, and I think that the coming year will he found to ho a more suocesful one than has been the ease for the past three years. It i-, amazing that it- Minister ot the Crown should talk in this inadvisahfe manner, and one wonders whether it is a lack of mental capacity or merely a

desire to he optimistic. Farmers who know the position are not likely to he carried tvwa.v hy talk ut this character. What is the real position ? Between 1921 lm d February. 1927, all wholesale prices fell from 171 to lot or 12 per cent; export prices, ilia! is the prices lor primary products. Icfl I runt 1 71 to I I |s. or 17 per cent: award wages rose from 170 to 170 or 0) per tent. Until this disparity in price levels is removed the farmers will suffer. Internal costs are so high that there U scarcely any profit in primary production. We are face to face with an economic problem

that we have never had to face before, and that problem is to brine external and internal prices on a parity. At present external or produce prices appear to ho about 20 per cent below internal prices. Our exports, which consist tip to about !Jb per cent, of primary products, will now pay for 20 per cent, loss labour than ill 1021. T'ntil this dislocation of prices is set ri;;ht

unempi'oyment and depression will continue. It is necessary to find employment for that 20 tier cent. Ihe primary producers through exports cannot do it, hut the Government, and the local bodies arj toying with the matter hy borrowing money for expenditure on employment. This is a palliative, an expedient tluil. cannot solve the problem. The Government and the local bodies cannot go on borrowing indefinitely for that is what they will he forced to do if the disparity in price levels is permitted to continue. ’I he exports for the eight months ol the current produce year, that is to the end of May. were valued at CJ1.917.050 as compared with Cdfi,000,099 in the corresponding eight months of the previous season, and L - 1ii,200,073 for the similar term of the year in 1021-2-> season. ii will he seen Irom these figures that compared with last year there is shrinkage of Cl .(.'19.019. and compared with 1921-21 the shrinkage is Cl I ..'1:12,992. and practically the whole of this loss, or at any ran* 9o per cent falls on the primary producer, and ill the two years wages have gone j up 3) per cent on the average. There is the ixtsition and it is useless to r Ministers of tile Crow n to inane optimistic speeches and thus try to escape, taking the proper stops lor rectifying, the position. AATiat the economists advise. and what is obviously the correct solution is to endeavour to remove the disparity between external and internal prices, or in other words to endeavour to reduce costs ol production. It is fiie reduction that the authorities are endeavouring to dodge, because it means a reduction in w ages. I'or fixing the wages oil relict works at 12s for married men and 9s for single men ! the Government, has been accused ol , attempting to lower the standard ol j living. “Undoubtedly a good deal ot nonsense is talked about the standard of living, which is too often confounded with the cost of living and award wages. The standard ol living is rein- , five, and each one .- standard depends upon his earnings or production.. The j standard of i'tving must be relative to j the national income. It was shown j above that the national income as compared with two years ago has shrunk over 1‘11,000,009 in a period of eight months, and yet the standard of living is expected, or rather it is being insisted. that it must he maintained at the | same level of two years ago. Ofcour.-o it is Hilt really being maintained asj the thousands of unemployed in the i country can attest, hut the entire com-| inanity must conform to the new j standard, which docs not moan starve - tion or anythin." drastic, hut merely the elimination of waste and extravagance. .Many years of high living have crystali.sed into habits of extravagance, which cannot he abandoned at a. moment’s notice, but the pressure of economic circumstances .will force I their abandonment.