The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE FARMERS IN CONFERENCE AND THE MEAT TRUST.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 1 June 1917, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

FARMERS IN CONFERENCE AND THE MEAT TRUST.

(With which is incorporated The Taihape Post and Waimarino News),

Has the American Meat Trust already got such a hold of the farmers of this country that it can openly practice its blood-sucking, strangling methods with comparative impunity? This question every farmer, not only in New Zealand but throughout the British Empire, should ask himself. It becomes a pressingly vital question to every man on the land in this district after he has read the report of the annual conference of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union, just concluded. One loading farmer stated without qualification that “the producers were already in the power of the Meat Trust Monopoly, ’ ’ and he supported his statement by assorting that buyers for the monopoly would come tb the producer and offer a certain price, and if that offer was not accepted he had the stock left on his hands. The speaker emphasised his views by saying, “A monopoly truly existed.at the, present time.” This exactly lays bare the Trust’s methods: they eliminate all buying and selling. When the Trust is master the farmer can no longer sell his stock, he justswaps it for what the Trust likes to offer. To sell, of course, implies those negotiations generally termed bargaining, but the Trust permits nothing in the nature of bargaining The only latitude allowed the producer is to take what is offered or ,say no, but to do the latter is to invite quick ruin. There is nobody loft that dare pay a sixpence more, for the Trust has all that sort of thing entirely in subjection. Farmers have no choice but to take what is offered or resent the injustice and seek another vocation. Mr Geo. Yule, a well-known farmer in South \\ airarapa told the conference what he had personally scon in America, where ho investigated the methods of the Tiusu First, he pointed out that in only five years cattle stocks in the United States were depleted to the extent of two million head, and sheep by six millions. Beef was being sold there at one shilling a pound, the Trust controlling the low price paid to the producer and the high price charged the consumer. The result was it did not pay farmers to breed cattle. No butcher could buy at any other price than that fixed by the Trust; farmers’ own freezing works were squeezed out by the crushing me thods common to trusts. If tlm Trust got sway in New Zealand it would be to the disadvantage of both producer and consumer. He put no reliance in the Government, he was quite cogms ant of the fact that it could not legis late against the citizens of another country. It was for the producers themselves'to see that they kept the meat business of New Zealand in their own hands. The chairman of the conference corroborated what Mi. Tulo said, he compared the Heat Trust with an octopus, and said it was only when its tentacles had acquired a firm grip on producers that the power of the urn desirable thing was made manifest. If tills huge octopus once got a grip in this country, as it assuredly would it producers went on taking the bail that was temptingly being dangled bexoro them it would be with their assist-

ancc. It was no use appealing to the Government; producers had the whole matter in their own hands, and it was their duty to each other, to themselves, and to New Zealand to sell their stock to those freezing companies the genuiness of which they were absolutely sure about. Mr James Smith, the Taihape delegate, told the conference that Taihape had experienced a taste of the meat monopoly. He referred to the operations of the Otaihape Freezing Works, saying the first year was very successful, but during the second year the American policy was introduced by other firms with the object of smashing the local concern. Five shillings per head in advance of Government prices, ko said, were offered for fat sheep with the result that only half the quantity reached the works that was dealt with the first year. It is not at all surprising that the annual conference of the Farmers’ Union carried quite mv animously a resolution, "That the farmers throughout New Zealand bo urged to support the local farmers’ works?” The conference was agreed that it was useless appealing to the Government; that it was vain to hope for any assistance from the Government that would render material help; the whole matter rested with farmers and they could put their head in the Trust noose if they pleased, dangling to Trust piping, or they could keep their business in their own hands, by establishing their own works and loyal ly supporting them. There are no words in our vocabulary that are capable of adequately describing the treachery of those who kelp to build works and then use them as a lever to got higher prices from Trust buyers. For any farmer to so forsake his follows and his own works, even temporarily and without intention to continue, gives the Trust its first footing. However, the conference unanimously gave its view 7, which clearly was, that to play with the baits offered by meat trusts was dangerous in the extreme, and w r ould in the end destroy that plane of life and success the Farmers’ Union had been striving for with some measure of success. The safety of New Zealand farming lay through loyalty to their own works, and the conference unanimously appealed to all farmers to avoid Trust inducements to do otherwise. Surely farmers in ' this' district will not disregard this-appeal, and sell themselves and their birthright for the Trust mess of pottage!'