LEAD WANTED.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 160, 6 June 1940, Page 8

LEAD WANTED.

PRODUCTION BY FARMERS. DIRECTION NOT KNOWN. “I cannot emphasise this too much,” said Mr J. E. Hewitt, of Mangamaire, in an address at the sheepfarmers’ week at Massey College yesterday, “that farmers are willing to do everything in their- power to assist production providing they are told wliat to do.” . • In the discussion that followed an address by Mr Hewitt on plans for increasing production, Mr E. R. Winkler suggested that one form in which production might be increased was in the canning industry. He referred to the high quality of this industry in New Zealand, -

Mr Hewitt said that this point had been worrying him too. There was no planning in the country for a national production scheme. Farmers should be told exactly wliat they were required to do. Until there was properly organised control he could not sec how it was possible to put forward a maximum war effort.

Later in the discussion Air T. A. Duncan, of Hunterville, chairman of the Meat Producers’ Board, said that the British Government had based its prices for New Zealand meat on the 1938 levels. In 1938 Britain was in short supply of heavy lambs. Farmers could not do better from-New Zealand’s point of view than increase the weight of lambs, as the British Government seemed to want a heavier weight... Production of meat- was up this season by about a million carcases, and! the farmers were to be congratulated on that. He did not' know what more could be done than to see that farmers obtained a .satisfactory price and that a better form of farming in every way was encouraged. The British Government had guaranteed to take 300,000 tons of meat from New Zealand. ■ Mr Hewitt said that the question might arise whether the New Zealand Government really did want an; increase in production. The British Government had not so far., entered into a contract wit'll to take all the meat we coilld provide, and he would have raised this point in his address but for the recent "broadcast appeal by Hon. \V. Nash for an increase in production. “We desire somo evidence of what production is wanted,” said Air Duncan. “The Government here cannot tell you what that is; that has to come from the British Government.” The matter should be settled, he said. If a start was made to produce along certain lines these lines might not be desired by the British Government. Another speaker suggested that the only way to increase production at once was by rationing in New Zealand. The other ways would take too long.