FARMERS’ COSTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 June 1938, Page 3

FARMERS’ COSTS

SUBSTANTIAL INCREASE DURING PAST YEAR OBSERVATIONS BY COMPANY CHAIRMAN (By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, June 29. Speaking at the annual meeting of the Farmers’ Trading Company, the chairman, Mr A. A. Ross, said: “Within New Zealand we have some serious problems to face. Costs in all directions have been pushed up to a very high level. Within the past year the cost of living, which ultimately affects all costs, has increased in New Zealand just double that of the increase in Australia. So far these costs have been carried with little serious trouble, owing to our substantial income from overseas, but we have no control over that income, and it only requires a moderate fall and we would be faced with real trouble —the problem of reducing costs to conform with the volume of business. “The solving of that problem, as we know from sheer experience, is going to test the stability of many a business concern, but we feel assured that, if and when trouble comes, it will be found that the affairs of this country have been so guided that it will come through the ordeal with no serious damage. “The past year has been a fairly prosperous one for the farming industry, in spite of high costs, which they cannot avoid or pass on, but the recent eczema scourge is going to entail very heavy losses, and we can only hope that the intensive investigations now being made will prevent a recurrence or, if it should recur, enable it to be satisfactorily dealt with. In the meantime business continues good, being at least on a level with last year at the same date, and prospects are for another satisfactory year.”