STATE OR FARMERS.

Matamata Record, Volume II, Issue 105, 7 November 1918, Page 1

STATE OR FARMERS.

Future Shipping Control. At last Friday's Te Awamutu Sub-executive meeting of the Farmers' union, a communication was received from the Provincial Secretary urging that the strongest possible pressure be brought on the Government to provide ships, either by purchase or new building, to be owned and controlled by the Government in the interests of the people. In the discussion which followed Mr Mandeno said State control would prove inadvisable and the farmers should retain control over the means of transportation. In the event of a Labor Government gaining power, the farmers interests would be endangered with both railways and shipping regulated by the authorities. Mr Johnson considered that whilst farmer ownership may be a worthy ideal, it was not practicable. Farmers could not raise enough capital to provide the ships and combat the opposition. The State had wider powers and greater resources. At present, with shipping controlled, competition was removed, but in the after-war conditions, a farmers' concern would experience great difficulty. It was a better proposition that the State should own the vessels, working under a fair margin of profit, instead of private investors reaping huge dividends. The tendency of State, control would be to keep freights down to a reasonable level, and there would be immense benefits of having shipping controlled at this end instead of the other end of the world. The State could legislate, if necessary, to remove competition of the Trusts, and even exclude them from the ports of this Dominion, but a' farmers' company would have to follow the Union company and go into the big combine or else be swamped by opposition. Mr Wynyard thought the main desire should be to secure a service operating outside of the combines, be it State or private owned. As to State ownership, they had the example of the insurance business, in which the State office had joined the Underwriters' association. The meeting divided on the question of State or Farmer owned ships, and decided —though not unanimously —to support the proposals of the executive.