WELLINGTON TOPICS

Hokitika Guardian, 6 December 1930, Page 2

WELLINGTON TOPICS

THE FARMERS’ PLIGHT.

APPEAL TO GOVERNMENT.

(Special Correspondent).

WELLINGTON, Dec. 4

Yesterday it fell to the lot of Sir Apirana Ngata. in his eapaicty as representative of the Hon, E. A. Ransom, the Acting-Prime Minister, to receive a deputation from the Nationat Dairy Association and .the Dairy Pro-, cluce Control Board, whose spokesman declared that the dairying.industry .was passing through the worst, depression jt over had experienced, and that, unless the took immediate, steps to help the farmers over the crisis many of them would have, to abandon their properties. With the Prime Minister himself still at the other end of the world and with the Acting-Prime Minister laid aside ,by..illness. Sir. Apirana was confronted by an extremely difficult task, which he handled . with conspicuous ability. He recognised the magnitude of the difficulties by which the farmers were beset and ~ wished the Government could gi VG them immediate assistance. All it could do at the moment, however, was to thoroughly investigate the position, and this, he reiterated, would be gone about at oiice.

LAST RESORT. *"•' The “ Dominion,” referring to the . /appeal of the deputation this morning, .deprecates the, farmers' appeal for a /moratorium forthwith, “The only real justification for a moratorium, "was time conditions excluded,” it says, “arises in a condition of national eco„ nomic emergency, when the alternative to so serious an infraction of ordinary . contractual rights are such as to war"“'rant interference. A moratorium, in other words, is justifiable only when the alternative is a general and collapse of credit. It is apparently the belief of those interested , in the dairy industry that such a situation faces our daily farmers at the' ’ present time. This can be determined only by further investigation, as the facts available do not seem sufficient to form the basis of a conclusive judgment.” Business men generally take much the same view of the situation as does the morning paper, holding that the dairy farmers are not justified in talking of a moratorium at the present stage with the actual facts' of ‘ the situation undisclosed. “NO GOOD.” • Mr W. D. Hunt, in demonstrating the'position to the Minister, said that no better classification of the farmers could be made than those who paid their interest and those who did not. • The restoration of the old moratorium would not help the farmers at the present time. In all his dealings with -.farmers he had never come across ope who paid interest when his mortgage was being called up, Tile weak farmers, it was obvious, would not be protected by a moratorium along the lines of the one that prevailed during f. the war. The weak m a n, indeed, •would, be placed in a worse position than lie was at the present time, and he would have no other resource. Business men generally accept Mr . Hunt’s summary of the position. There also is a very general opinion abroad to the effect that more than a few of the dairy farmers are. calling out before they were seriously hurt. This ib a matter for the attention of the Government.

LEAD THE WAY

Meanwhile the members of the Dairy

Board have set a very excellent exr ample by reducing their own honararf iums, which had stood at £750 n year S for the chairman and £250 a year I: each for the other -members, by twenty per cent, reaching a total of £7OO. Fin the case of the staff salaries have f, been reduced by 12t per cent which f has to save the respectable sum of fc £950. The chairman in announcing jj the. reductions said he regretted hnvv jng to penalise the members of the i staff, but in the circumstances it- apt peared as if there should he an equality of sacrifice. No doubt the staff

shared the regrets of the chairman

There is a feeling abroad, however, among many disgruntled dairy farmers -and others that the Dairy Board could he dispensed with altogether without entaling any great lons upon the industry. The decline in prices is a matter of very grave concern to the

producers and they perhaps not unnaturally look covetuously at those ample salaries.