FARMERS CONFER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 July 1938, Page 7

FARMERS CONFER

DOMINION CONFERENCE OPENED MR MULHOLLAND’S ADDRESS GOVERNMENT CRITICISED (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. Eighty delegates from all parts of the Dominion are attending the thirtyseventh annual conference of the New Zealand Farmers' Union, which opened in Wellington yesterday and which will continue today. The principal feature of the conference yesterday was the annual address of the president, Mr W. W. Mulholland, Darfield, Canterbury. Mr Mulholland comprehensively reviewed the legislation of the past year in relation to the farming industry. He criticised the Government for its failure to close the gap between farmers’ costs and prices. By its legislation, he said, the Government has sent costs soaring towards the skies, while it had failed to raise the price of a single major export commodity. The only major commodity with which it had attempted to do anything was dairy produce, and the effect had been to prevent the dairy-farmer from getting the market value of his produce. The true principles of the guaranteed price had been abandoned, he said, strongly advocating the institution of the compensating price. He referred to the “startling powers” taken by the Government, and expressed fear that its ultimate object might be State ownership and control of farms. “Of the guaranteed price plan of the Labour Party there now remains nothing but the State ownership and control of the marketing of dairy produce, and that seems to be the only principle which the Government will not abandon,” Mr Holland observed in the course of his address. “Have the other promises and principles with which the scheme was decorated been only sugar-coating to induce us to swallow something which, if openly avowed, would have been exceedingly noxious to the farmers of New Zealand?” DOUBTS ABOUT INSULATION Having remarked that some evidence of economic strain was appearing now, as was to be seen in the shortening of hands in some factories, the difficulties of manufacturers in maintaining their production, and the reduction in sterling balances in London,” Mr Mulholland continued: “What will be the position when prices fall seriously? The Government says it will insulate New Zealand, and the natural question which arises is, How? But so far it has failed to elicit any very definite answer. The establishment of an equalisation reserve in the dairy produce account did seem to be one concrete measure toward the attempt. Its abandonment leaves nothing but hope and ever-swelling costs.” In spite of the Prime Minister’s brave words, there was no evidence that he had any real plan for insulating New Zealand in the event of a fall in world prices. The idea of spending one’s way out of a depression appeared to be borrowed from the Roosevelt policy in the United States, which was mentioned with apparent approval by some Government supporters at different times. Mr Mulholland quoted authorities condemning this policy as a failure. In any case he said, the possibility of an effective spending policy as a corrective to depressed conditions had been largely dissipated by the Government’s present policy of wild spending in a time of prosperity.

SOARING COSTS “Rising costs soar merrily toward the skies,” Mr Mulholland observed in another passage. “The attempt to question and belittle the increases that have taken place seems to indicate that there is a declining desire to implement that part of the Government’s policy which promised the farmers that these costs would be counter-balanced by higher prices.” “It is said that against the increases in costs certain reductions should be taken into account, and that is true,” he added, “but the claims that are made are much exaggerated. Reduction in interest is frequently pointed to, but the fact is that there has been no reduction in interest rates since November 30, 1934, when the banks, in agreement with the then Government, reduced the overdraft rate to 44 per cent. Somewhere round about that time — actually during 1935, I believe—the Mortgage Corporation offered mortgage money at 4 1-8 per cent. There has been no reduction in these rates since, but the Government must be given credit for having taken certain actions which have prevented the rise of interest rates within the .last year or so.”