FARMERS’ COSTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 August 1938, Page 6

FARMERS’ COSTS

MR G. H. O. WILSON REPLIES TO UNION. BASTS OF COMPARISONS. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. In reply yesterday to the statement issued by the New Zealand Farmers’ Union in comment on his speech in the Budget debate in the House of Representatives, Mr G. H. O. Wilson (Government, Rangitikei) said he was glacl, to observe that the Farmers’ Union did not attempt to deny his statement that farm costs had not on the whole risen since 1929, and that therefore the propaganda based on the assumption that they had increased abnormally was fallacious. "The criticism of my speech, however, appears to have been based on the abbreviated Press report,” Mr Wilson said. “I was at pains to point out that the farmers’ gross returns from their exports were approximately £10,000,000 more last season than in 1929. If, therefore, their costs had not increased, their position was better.' “Finally, I would point out that far the largest item in working expenses, as shown in the Year Book figures from which the Farmers’ Unipn statement quotes, and as the majority of farmers will know from experience, is manure, which has been substantially reduced in price since 1929. Interest, however, this statement shows, costs on the average farm nearly three times as much, and the reduction in average interest rates since 1929 is 13 per cent. “I did not quote the figures, for the amount allowed for wages on farms, but as the great bulk, of the farm work is done by the farmers themselves, the greater part of the increased margin between gross returns on the one hand and maintenance and interest charges on the other must go to the farmers themselves,” he said. DEPRECIATION OF MONEY. 'WELLINGTON, This Day. “Mr Ormond Wilson has made another omission; he has omitted to state that the value of New Zealand money has depreciated by at least 15 per cent since 1929,” says the New ■ Zealand Farmers’ Union in a statement issued last night. “Will Mr Wilson explain the difference between £2l and £l4 a bale for wool, and 123 s 8d and at least 150 s for butter?”