FARM COSTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 February 1939, Page 3

FARM COSTS

DISCUSSED AT RALLY IN WANGANUI SOME SPECIFIC COSTS. GOVERNMENT CRITICISED.' (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WANGANUI. February 21. A farmers’ rally at which the whole of the North Island, with the exception of Poverty Bay and Hawke’s Bay, was represented, was held in Makirikiri, near Wanganui, tonight. It was addressed by the Dominion president of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union, Mr W. W. Mulholland, Canterbury, and adopted resolutions urging that the farming industry be relieved from the rising burden of costs and that the hill country of the Dominion be classified to enable the standard of production of New Zealand to be maintained at the high level of past years. The first resolution was: (a) That as a short-term policy to give immediate relief land taxation, including hospital and country rating, be abolished; (b) that as a long-term policy internal costs be based on the farming income. The second resolution was that the Government be requested to undertake a comprehensive survey of the broken hill country in the Clifton, Ohura, Whangamomona, Stratford, Eltham, Palea, Waitotara, Waimarino, Wanganui and Kaitieke counties and classify it according to its quality into (1) land that can be permanently held in production; (2) marginal land that can be held with some measure of assistance; (3) areas that have gone or will eventually go out of production; and that with respect to class three a policy of gradual abandonment of the areas should be adopted and the land either planted with exotic trees or allowed to revert to native forest. “The present Government came into office pledged to a policy of making the position of the farmer sound, ’ said Mr Mulholland, “but the Farmers’ Union claims that the Government has failed to carry out that policy. It has not only failed, but we claim it is being untrue to its own policy, and is neglecting the farming industry, shall I say deliberately—l almost feel that that is justified.”. Mr Mulholland said that not long ago the Farmers’ Union met the Prime Minister and other leaders of the Government. Mr Savage had given a sympathetic hearing, but nothing had been done sor far. Technical problems had been referred to by the Ministei of Lands, and he suggested a departmental inquiry. “Those technical matters can be solved by the farmers themselves if their economic position is sound,’ Mr Mulholland added. “The return from land today is not sufficient to meet expenses.” He said that if the vast number of people in the country who did not add to the sum total of the production of the country were to get more than they were getting, farmers would get less. By the criterion of years the prices the farmer was getting to day were not at such a low ebb as to be critical, but the other side of the ledger costs were at such a level that they could not be met.