SCARCER & DEARER

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 52, Issue 3278, 21 June 1943, Page 6

SCARCER & DEARER

PRICES NOT KEPT DOWN CRITICISM IN THE HOUSE REMARKS BY MR SUTHERLAND “Everything that the Internal Marketing Division handles becomes scarcer and dearer,” was a remark passed by Mr A. S. Sutherland, M.P. for Hauraki, when criticising that department in a speech in the House of Representatives last week. Mr Sutherland said:— “Seeing that the Minister of Marketing is present I would like to say a few words about the Internal Marketing Division. If there is one thing which will bring about the defeat of the present Government it is the vagaries of that Division. “Recently when a member on this side of the House was twitting the Government with not being able to keep prices down one Labour member interjected, ‘What about butter?’ I interjected to the effect that as a matter of fact the price of buttei had been kept down and stabilised but that it had been done at the expense of the dairy farmer. Scarcer and Dearer “As a matter of fact everything that the Internal Marketing Division handles becomes scarcer and dearer. We have learned this morning from the hon. member for Wairarapa what the growers think of the /Government’s interference in the matter of cabbages.

“The other evening I called on a small country store in order to obtain some tobacco, which I obtained. As I was leaving I noticed some honey on the shelves and asked for two cartons. The storekeeper would not sell me two but would let me have one carton of 11b., the price being Is 2d. He half apologised for the price being so high but I told him I was not complaining about that. “He continued however to say that it was the fault of the Internal Marketing Division and that its interference in the sale of honey has made it scarce and dear like everything else ■that it handles. Price of Honey

“Now that the Internal Marketing Division is controlling honey, the grower gets sid a pound, but the consumer who buys it in the shop has to pay Is 2d, if he can get it. The day is not far distant when the producer will demand a larger say in the handling of his own produce. “The department is undertaking all sorts of .schemes which will eventually push the small man out of business. The department recently completed a huge building in Auckland at a cost, I understand, of £150,000, that figure including cost of land, excavation, buildings, fittings and furniture. That huge place in Auckland is only built to put our own produce merchants out of operation. Would Have Built 100 Houses “On the waterfront in Auckland we have some of the finest marketing buildings in the Southern Hemisphere. , That £150,000 would have erected a hundred houses. The money and the time would have been far •better expended in building houses instead of putting up that huge building to put our own people out of operation. “I am a subscriber to that paper called The Standard, and I notice that the Federation of. Labour has gone to the assistance of the Internal Marketing Department. A resolution was carried unanimously to exterminate private enterprise so far as the handling of home-grown food stuffs is concerned. Cost Of Living Rose

“Now, that sounds good. It is just another scheme put into operation under the cloak of a war effort to bolster up the Internal Marketing Division. The scheme was hatched by the Federation of Labour at the Easter Conference, and the Government has been directed to put it into operation. “The Minister of Manpower, who is also the president of the Federation of Labour, stated that 75 per cent, of the wholesalers will be put out of operation ’by this scheme. I should not think that many of those people will be supporting- the Government at the next election. “The president, of the Federation of Labour also intimated to the conference that ‘a recent rise of 12 percent had occurred in the cost of living.’ That is dangerously near the 21 per cent, where award workers -can come along and say ‘We want a rise.’ Growing of Potatoes “The information that the cost of living had risen by 12 per cent, was handed on to the Cabinet, and the Cabinet decided to reduce the price of potatoes by £35,000 per month to help reduce the cost of living. Of

course, that great 'old milch cow—the War Expenses Account —will have to pay the £35,000. An Hon. Member. —A month. Mr 'Sutherland. —Yes. That was the second time they had to come to the rescue to keep the price of potatoes down. “Another statement made at the conference by the 'president of the Federation of Labour, which was given prominence, was: ‘Potato growing is not to be left to rugged individualism in the future, and there, will be no famine in potatoes next year as the Government are now planning and directing’—that sounds familiar —‘the future of the potato growers in New Zealand.’ What the People Think “I should like to know.how many people at that conference were potato growers. I will bet that it is the sons of the ‘rugged individualists’ who grow potatoes in New Zealand. “Yes, the people are anxiously awaiting the day when they can tell the Government what they think of the Internal Marketing Department and of the Federation of Labour’s intolerable interference. “The department has not made one article cheaper, moi’e or better in quality. It is just another experience of costly State control. The more rules and the more regulations the Government makes, the less freedom we enjoy.