FALL IN EXPORTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 March 1939, Page 5

FALL IN EXPORTS

THE FARMER’S ECONOMIC POSITION MR. HAMILTON’S SURVEY. COSTS & PRICES OUT OF BALANCE (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WANGANUI, March 5.' “Some say that difficulties of farmers are largely caused by the high price paid for land,” said the Leader of the National Party, the Hon. A. Hamilton, in an interview. “1 repeat that money invested in stock and plant and improvements to .farm property is not' being rewarded at a rate comparative with other investment, nothing at all tor the land being taken into account in that statement.” Mr. Hamilton quoted from the latest statistics to indicate the basis of reward as compared with the year 1914. He made the points that: Nominal industrial wages are up 76 per cent.; the cost of living is up 54 per cent.; prices for locally produced commodities are up 50 per cent.; prices for imported commodities are up 44 per cent.; export prices for pastoral and dairy produce are up 20 per cent.; farming costs are up 45 per cent. In a further subdivision of export prices it was shown that for 1938 on the same comparative basis dairy produce was up 11 per cent., meat was up 62 per cent., and wool up 15 per cent. “These figures show that the farmers are at a distinct disadvantage in an economic system loaded against them,” continued Mr. Hamilton. “It may be argued, by some that the guaranteed price for dairy produce offers a cure in one direction, yet it is a fact that under the guaranteed price for dairy produce for the two years of the scheme’s operation the farmers did not receive the full market price for their goods. “Were it not for the satisfactory price being received for frozen meat, sheep-farmers would be experiencing very severe difficulties today. Many are seriously embarrassed, particularly the high-country men, who are almost solely dependent on their sales of wool. They have little or. no fat stock to sell. “Exports clearly reflect the ■ unsoundness of Labour’s policy. They have fallen by £8,000,000 and are still falling. In 1938, as compared with 1937, the export of butter was down by 18,001 tons, cheese by 1800 tons, lamb by 7600 tons and pork by 4000 tons, and timber fell by 3,000.000 feet. That production is still falling is also revealed by the figures. For the first five months of this export year butter had chown a decrease of 8813 tons and cheese a decrease of 1592 tons, both as compared with the previous season. “While the Labour Government isappealing for more production on the one hand in an effort to give extravagance a little more tether, it is, on the other, executing a drifting policy which had already had the opposite effect and which must increasingly have the opposite effect,” Mr. Hamilton concluded. “If the Government wants more production then it must place the conditions of reward on a much more equitable competitive basis than is the case today. Even the standard of reward for farm labour under this Government is far below that for relief on public works.”