A FARMER’S COMPLAINT.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 56, 9 March 1915, Page 3

A FARMER’S COMPLAINT.

[To The Editor Stratford Post.] Sir,—The farmers here generally are very dissatisfied and disappointed at Mr Massey’s fixed prices for beef and mutton. He has, not fixed the price for hides and tallow, and generally the arrangements are all in favor of the large freezing concerns, and the small farmers are entirely in the dark as to what they will get for their byproducts. This is a good solid argument in favor of the farmers of Taranaki owning their own works. At present we are not getting a fair deal from the freezing, companies and others. I have had both sheep and cattle fat and ready to go to the works this last month, and have been refused, notwithstanding the tact that large supplies are going into Waitara from the Main Trunk from as far north as the Waikato, showing clearly to my mind that the present freezing companies are playing into the hands of the big men and dealers, and this will go on until Taranaki farmers have lost enough money, many times over, to have built their oavh works. Another great injustice we are suffering from in the Whangamomona district is the inadequate railway time-table. The only station on the line that the train leaves promptly to time-table is Whangamomona. This go-as-you-please train arrives in Stratford generally from twenty minutes to two hours late, and leaves on the return from ten minutes to two hours behind time. Just recently the train was delayed, with several hundred school children, for two hours waiting for two trucks of cattle to arrive by the south train, which was three hours late. This was on a very cold night, and apparently the Railway Department thought more of the cattie than the women and children. If we send a truck of goods away it may leave here in due course and get put off at Te Wera or Toko, for a day or a week. These facts the Stratford business people all know, and the Chamber of Commerce must also know, hut still they do nothing and say nothing. Just fancy this sort of thing happening when Mr N. .1. King was in charge of affairs! Why, he would call a special meeting and “raise Cain,” and insist in getting an extra train four days a week to cope with the traffic.—l am, etc., FARMER. Whangamomona, March 5, 1015.