BEYOND ALL REASON.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 September 1921, Page 3

BEYOND ALL REASON.

MARKETING OF PRODUCE. ALABMTNG BILL OF COSTS. In a somewhat alarming speech at the annual meeting of the Feilding Farmers’ Freezing Co. by Mr. Hugh Burrell, chairman of directors, he said the cost of preparing and marketing primary products was beyond all reason, and‘the question of labor was without doubt the most seriotis before twe producers that day. Present costs simply meant bankruptcy for farmers, and bankruptcy for the farmer meant bankruptcy for the Government. Instances were given by him of the way costs had increased. The total cost of handling and marketing meat, he said, was no less than 4d per wb. c.i.f. To sell ex-store London would cost another M, making the total charges 4|d per lb. What prospects, he asked, had the farmer of surviving under this tremendous burden?

A pelt which to-day was worth 2s lOd, cost no less than to prepare and market, while tallow, valued at £34 per ton, cost £25 to market, notwithstanding a £1 12s 6d per ton reduction in freight. Wool cost to prepare and market. He had received a cablegram the previous day to the effect that 197 bales of wool ex Athenic averaged 9%d per lb. Thus it cost CJd to obtain making slipe wool only worth 3d per lb. on the sheep’s back.

In face of this they were in receipt, of demands from the freezing workers for an increase of 35 1-3 per cent, over the rates paid in 1917. The minimum rate of pay demanded for unskilled laborers was 2s 6d per hour, and slaughtermen 45s per 100 sheep and lambs. Greasers and firemen were demanding 24s per shift of eight hours or part thereof. Something had to be done, and that quickly, for they had no guarantee that the Arbitration Court would not grant these demands. Tn his opinion the useful days of the Arbiration Court Lad passed, and the whole Act, with its extravagant and costly administration, should be abolished. He could see nothing for it but for the. freezing companies of the Dominion to resist these exorbitant demands, and in the event of the men refusing to operate the works, as happened last year, the ’farmers must be prepared to operate the works themselves or face ruinatioil There was no alternative, it was one thing or the other.