Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, APRIL 21, 1939. MORE GUARANTEED PRICES?

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 April 1939, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, APRIL 21, 1939. MORE GUARANTEED PRICES?

ABE the sheep farmers of the Dominion prepared to follow the example of the dairy farmers by accepting guaranteed prices for their products? This is a question on which some uncertainty exists at the moment, but it may be determined following upon the discussion which took place in ’Wellington, yesterday, when a deputation from the New Zealand Farmers Union interviewed the Prime Minister (Mr Savage) and the Aetiilg Minister of Lands (Mr Lee Martin) and urged strongly that assistance should be given by the State to those engaged in sheep farming.

In reply to the deputation’s request that the Government should find between £5,000,000 and £7,000,000 to place the sheep farmers on a financial basis, Mr Savage said he was not going to reduce other people’s incomes to help the sheep farmers. lie agreed that assistance was required in some cases and said he was convinced that a guaranteed price was the solution. The Dominion President of the Farmers’ Union (Mr Mulholland) stated that where the guaranteed price had been discussed at meetings, a majority had been against it, but he could not say what the general body of sheep farmers thought.

The position reached is in some respects extraordinary. It is maintained by the representatives of the sheep farmers that the difficulties in which they are involved are due not to low prices, but to high and increasing costs. The remedy needed, in any case, is to bring costs into an equitable relationship with returns and it would appear that whatever action is taken to that end, whether by the payment of a guaranteed price or in any other way, must, if it is to serve its intended purpose, .give the sheep farmer a.larger relative share than he is getting at present of the available national income. In admitting that some sheep farmers are in need of assistance, and in offering, or suggesting, assistance by way of a guaranteed price, while at the same time declaring that he is not going to reduce other people’s incomes to help the sheep farmers, the Prime Minister appears to be saddling himself with the problem of getting something out of nothing. -

Obviously the sheep farmer can only be helped either by adding something to his returns ■ or by reducing his costs. Neither of these things can be done, however, without taking something away from other people. A guaranteed price which did not take something away from other people, either directly or in process of monetary manipulation, would leave the sheep farmer, at best, in very much the same, position as he occupies at present. .

The. Acting Minister of Lands declares himself satisfied, however, that something can be done, and has undertaken to place proposals before Cabinet within a few days. It must be hoped that these proposals will give some clearer indication than is meantime available of .what the Government has in mind where assistance to sheep farmers is concerned. A clear statement of what is intended is the more to be desired if, as seems probable, sheep farmers are to be invited to vote on a guaranteed price scheme.