FARMERS’ PROBLEMS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 August 1938, Page 6

FARMERS’ PROBLEMS

EFFECT OF RECENT LEGISLATION. MR J. ROBERTSON SPEAKS AT TE WHITE Mr J. Robertson, M.P., addressed a well attended public meeting at Te Whiti last evening. Mr Rogers presided and at the conclusion of the address Mr Robertson was accorded a hearty vote of thanks. Mr Robertson reviewed the legislative and administration work of the Government and dealt at some length with the problems affecting the farmers. When the Labour Government took office, said Mr Robertson, the farmers of New Zealand were in difficulties, stay-orders and budgeting being the ■ order of the day. Dairy farmers were struggling to carry on with incomes that fluctuated violently from month to month, according to the price being realised in England for their produce. The monthly payout from dairy factories had in some years varied from 51 to lOd per lb butterfat. Through the work of the Mortgagors’ Relief and Lessees' Rehabilitation Commissions, mortgage indebtedness,, interest and rent had been substantially reduced and the period of stay-orders and budgeting ' had been brought to an end The effect of this legislation, together with the guaranteed price scheme, had been to place a large section of primary producers on a basis which enabled them to carry on with a feeling of real economic security. A great deal of criticism had been levelled at the Government’s marketing scheme, said Mr Robertson, but the savings effected by orderly marketing amounted to many thousands of pounds. During the period last year when peak supplies of dairy produce would have had the tendency of depressing prices on the London market, 50,000 boxes of butter had been sold to Germany. This, in the opinion of Mr Davis, had caused prices to lift by 4s per cwt. Mr Robertson said he did not think the farmers would throw away the substance of the guaranteed price and marketing scheme for the shadow of a compensatory price scheme which nobody seemed able to eXplaih With any clearness.