THE FARMERS’ LOT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 April 1938, Page 7

THE FARMERS’ LOT

“MAGNIFICENT ADVANCE.” PRIME MINISTER’S CLAIM. By Telegraph.—Press Association, WELLINGTON, This Day. Dealing with the position of the farmer, in his address last night, the Prime Minister (the Rt Hon M. J. Savage) said that official statistics did not sustain many of the complaints made by the Press. On the contrary, the figures demonstrated a magnificent advance on the treatment the farmer had received from the Coalition Government. The farmer's improved position was indicated to a remarkable degree by the greater use of fertilisers and agricultural machinery. The increase in the production of superphosphates in two years was 30,000 tons. The 1936-37 production was a record. The area topdressed which decreased under- the Forbes-Coates Government by 430,000 acres when artificial depression was considered to be of greater benefit to the country than artificial fertilisers had increased under Labour in two years by 650,000 acres. The improved income of farmers was also reflected in the increased use of agricultural machinery. In two years an additional 1700 dairy-farmers had purchased milking plants. And so with agricultural- tractors; since 1935 no fewer than 1240 farmers had bought the machines which reduced manual and animal labour. Farm prosperity had, in fact, been demonstrated in many ways. The farmer, like the prosperous townsman, had a perfect right to use his increased income as he desired, but it might be observed that last year the country people bought 30 per cent more brand new motorcars than they did in 1936. Was that a sign of bad times? “Then there is the wonderful increase in totalisator investments at race meetings,” continued Mr Savage. “The rate of increase ranged from 100 per cent to 430 per cent. The average increase in 17 country districts last year was twice as much compared with the investments five years ago. "The benefits of a guaranteed income to dairy-farmers have been reflected in the official returns. These gains canno't be refuted. Let me remind the dairy farmers that, although they doubled production in the ten years before the advent of the Labour Government, in December. 1935. they did not get a penny extra as a reward for their splendid efforts. They were driven to the verge of bankruptcy, and yet they are invited to destroy the present system of guaranteed prices and begin all over again.

"The Labour Government’s guaran-tccd-price plan gives the dairy-farmer justice and security. Are the farmers likely to surrender the substance for the shadow? Every dairy-farmer knows at the beginning of the season what price he is to receive. He is entitled to his share of the total production of the country, and has the right, at all times, to approach the Government to present his claims.”