GUARANTEED PRICE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 158, 4 June 1940, Page 3

GUARANTEED PRICE

FARMERS DISSATISFIED. PROBLEM OF RISING COSTS. Reference to the “intense dissatisfaction” with the guaranteed price fixed by tho Government and the “great unrest throughout the industry” is made in. tho annual report of tho directors of the National Dairy Association. “Never since the passing of the Primary Products Marketing Act has there.been, such extreme disappointment or such a justifiable storm of protest as has followed the Government’s present decision,”' says the report. “Surely the Minister must realise that the industry has reached a parlous state under the burden of rising costs and inability to secure or pay for suitable labour. . . ' -; ,

“Experienced farmers do hot abandon their chosen occupation without sound cause, and tho decrease of 4327 dairy farmers in 1937-38 followed by a further decrease of 1470 last year is surely striking evidence that the industry has not received the consideration it must have if it is to expand or even hold its place in the community. “A continued decline in production cannot be otherwise than a menace to the welfare of the whole of New Zealand, and mere appeals for more production are of little or no avail if more production spells greater losses. “In spite of the elaborate price control machinery set up by the Government, commodity prices are everywhere soaring at an alarming rate to the farmers’ disadvantage. 11l every direction the Price Tribunals are forced by the facts presented to them to sanction increased charges hv botli local manufacturers and importers. These increased costs are recognised by the Government as being beyond its power to control, and'it is. therefore, impossible to understand why the dairy farmer should be specially singled out and forced to sell his product without the slightest regard for what his costs of production may be. “The Minister- in the exercise of his dictatorial powers under a- mutilated Marketing Act has been utterly uncompromising in his attitude and must accept, his full share of responsibility for the Dominion’s failure to achieve tho great objective of increased and increasing output of the foodstuffs so urgently needed by the Empire at war.”