GUARANTEED PRICE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 October 1938, Page 8

GUARANTEED PRICE

FARMERS’ UNION STATEMENT TO COMMITTEE. DETERMINATION OF FAIR BASIS. The formal statement submitted by representatives of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union to the Guaranteed Price Committee embodied the following recommendations: — It is realised that it is necessary to have some standards on which to base the guaranteed price, but it is submitted that they should not be fixed arbitrarily, but they should be fixed with at least as much attention to the practical considerations of the industry as to statistics, and they should not be of such a nature as to demand from the dairy farmer a higher standard of efficiency for less pay than any other section of the community. How then can such standards be arrived at? Professor Arthur L. Bowley in “Elements of Statistics,” 3rd edition, page 123—a world authority on 'statistics —says: —“ .... If we are taking a single measurement that of the ‘mode’ is often the most useful. Whereas the arithmetic mean and the 'median' may correspond to no reality but be merely numerical conceptions, the mode is precisely that number for which most instances can be found.” This is much simpler also than discovering the “average efficient” farmer,'which must always remain a nebulous conception. There can be no question that the Government will be thinking of the “greatest good of the greatest number,” and it is, therefore, suggested that the standards used in fixing the guaranteed price should be the mode average in each case. These would be: — (a) Butterfat production per acre: Somewhere between 96.17 and 126.831bs per acre. (b) Butterfat production per labour unit: Somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 lbs. of butterfat per male unit—probably just below the arithmetic average of 4,5401bs per unit. (c) Butterfat production per cow: Somewhere between 214.00 and 225.05 lbs. per cow. (Year Book—page 433) probably just below the arithmetic average of 227.14 lbs. per cow. ■ It will be seen that the use of the “mode” average will achieve “the greatest good of the greatest number” which must be the objective of the Government. In the increases granted the previous year, no allowance was made for the fact that some of the increase would have to be passed on to the farm worker. In any increase which is granted, therefore, there should be an allowance made for the increased labour payments which will become necessary.