FARMERS' UNION CONFERENCE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 188, 30 July 1908, Page 2

FARMERS' UNION CONFERENCE

]!y Telegraph.—Press Association. We llingUm, Wednesday. An attempt was made by tlie North Canterbury Fanners' Union to-day 10 get. nil expression of opinion from the Sew Zealand Karmers' Union Conference in favor of the South Island llain Trunk railway. The motion proposed was: "That this conference would ask the union to support all other organisations in urging the completion of the South Island main line of railway." The mover said the South Island line was a worlc of supreme importance to tne whole of New Zealand, and in this view he was supported by several delegates, but the motion was condemned by the Southland delegate, who stigmatised it as an attempt to involve the conference in log-rolling. The motion was lost ly eleven votes to eight, four of the official members of the conference abstaining from voting. The conference passed the following resolutions: — That the Government be urged to discontinue the construction of public works bv ilailv wage or on the co-opera-tive syi'tem, and ttiat instead the contract system he applied to all_ public works; that the conference use its best endeavors to induce the Government to have all contracts over £IOO let by puolic tender and not by petty contract *j at present. That a radical change in the treatment of native lands is imperative; that individualisation of all audi lan.ls is the first step necessary, and the conference would urge the Government to carry it to completion in a much more rapid and systematic manner than heretofore. It was also deciilod to call upon the Government to improve the dangerous railway crossings throughout New Zealand.

Wellington, Last Night. The Farmers' Union Conference to-day passed the following resolutions:—That in view of the failure of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act, it would be in the interests of everybody concerned if these Acts were repealed or amended; that the Union is opposed to any alteration of the tariff in the direction of increasing the import duty on timber, and would ask the Minister of Railways to abolish tho differential tariff on imported timber, and that the Union asks the Government to do away with that, as it is entirely a tax on the farming community; that this Conference strongly protests against any export duty on farm produce of any description; that tlie Railway Department be urged to devise satisfactory methods of dealing with the danger of fire caused by sparks from locomotives; that the Government bo asked to carry farmers in of six to experimental farms at excursion rates, and that accommodation should be provided at reasonable rates, as is done in Denmark; that the Colonial Conference urge upon the Government the necessity of importing an a'dequatc supply of farm and domestic labor.