GUARANTEED PRICE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 May 1939, Page 8

GUARANTEED PRICE

FARMERS’ UNION CONFERENCE DISCUSSION SOCIALISATION OF INDUSTRY ALLEGED. REPORT OF COMMISSION AWAITED. The proposed guaranteed price for meat and wool was fully discussed at today’s inter-provincial conference of the Farmers’ Union. Although delegates differed, the consensus of opinion was opposed to Government control, which, it was stated, would mean socialisation and the loss of the farmers’ individuality. After a general discussion it was decided. on the motion of Mr C. Smith (Wanganui), that the question of accepting a guaranteed price be deferred until after the finding of the Royal Commission, recently set up, and that the Prime Minister be asked to fix an early reporting date for the commission.

Mr G. Hansen (Wairarapa) said they would get no relief from a free exchange and the sheep farmers were entitled to stability in their industry, but he did not think the raising of the exchange rate would prove a solution. 1

NOT SO BADLY OFF. Mr A. Ross (Wairarapa) said he did not think that the position of farmers, in the Wairarapa at any rate, was as bad as it was made out to be. He had accepted the guaranteed price for dairy produce and would accept it for meat and wool if nothing better were offered. Mr R. W. Kebbell (Wairarapa) suggested that they were being asked to vote on a political question. No one seemed to know whether the whole matter had been discussed with the Government. Mr R. Ramsden (Southern Hawke’s Bay) advocated Empire free trade as a solution of the farmers’ problems. Several delegates urged that nothing should be done until the findings of the Royal Commission about to be set up had been made known. Mr D. L. '-Younger (Feilding) said it was the incidence of taxation and not wages costs that were troubling the farmers. Mr C. Smith (Wanganui) said farmers would be very foolish to shut the door on the guaranteed price and turn down the proposal before they knew what it amounted to. NOT A SOLUTION. Mr W. Peat said that the guaranteed price was not a solution of the problem. A guaranteed price amounted to a subsidy and subsidies were vicious. The farmers had been pressed and pressed for years and were gradually being pushed off the land. Their land was becoming valueless as the result of high costs. It was not prices, which were reasonable, but high costs that were causing the trouble. The line between costs and prices was drawing too far apart. The guaranteed price would come out of the farmers’ pockets. “Whatever you do,” he added, “keep your business away from political control.” Mr R. O. Montgomerie (Wanganui) said they were not opposing the guaranteed price proposal from any diehard Tory principles, but because they felt that they were selling their freedom. There must be some other and more workable alternative. A guaranteed price would fall down because, of the inability of the Government to pay an adequate price for the farmers’ produce. . “SELLING OUR LIBERTY.” “We would be sacrificing and selling our liberty,” observed Mr J. H. Bremner (Wairarapa). It would mean Government control of meat and wool and he was opposed to that. At present they could consign their wool to the London market if they were not satisfied with the New Zealand price, but under a guaranteed price that privilege would be gone. Mr L. T. Daniell said they were only speaking to a blanket resolution. They were all against the principle, but none had any alternatives to offer. In recent years they had been crossing new social frontiers. It was not the guaranteed price they were discussing but the principle of a reasonable distribution of the burdens and benefits of a new social order. The Government did not want to pay a guaranteed price. The Government was in just as unfortunate a position as the farmers.

Mr H. J. Stewart (Feilding): “The Government is not so much interested in assisting our industry as going in for a socialisation cf meat and wool.” NO WORKABLE ALTERNATIVE. Mr H. Bennett (Wairarapa) said the Prime Minister had offered a guaranteed price, but had not stated what it would be. If the offer was good then a vote of farmers could be taken. There was no reason why 30 farmers should dictate to 30,000. They had no workable alternative to the guaranteed .price proposal at present. The New Zealand farmers had never been so divided as today and there had never been so much unrest. Many farmers were on the rocks and it was a case of any port in a storm. If a satisfactory guaranteed price was offered for meat and wool many farmers would accept it.

Mr J. Bond (Manawatu) said the very name guaranteed price stampeded many people into opposition. Irrespective of whether the guaranteed price was good, bad or indifferent it was opposed because of its name. He would say quite definitely that the dairy farmers were now better off than they ever were before. He did not think they would lose anything by a guaranteed price. NEED OF TAKING THOUGHT. Mr H. Morrison (Wairarapa) said the sheep farmer was in a totally different position from the dairy farmer, who had aways sold his produce collectively. They could not put up a marketing scheme under socialism that would be better th’an the present one. A guaranteed price would mean the socialisation of the whole industry, which would not be to the benefit of the farmers. The Government was just as hard up as the farmers, who should think twice before handing their produce over to the Government to be socialised and handled by civil servants. If the Government took control farmers would lose their individuality. A guaranteed price and Government control would not be in the best interests of the producers or the community, observed Mr W. Gordon (Wanganui). No guaranteed price scheme could be adequately financed without further depreciating the equity of the farmer. Mr W. J. Thomas (Wairarapa) ad-

vocated a fixed exchange as a solution. The chairman, Mr Lloyd Hammond, said it was futile to ask the Government to reduce costs because they would not consider it. When the exchange rate was pegged the cost of living went down. Costs only went up when wages rose. The Dominion Executive and the Sheepowners’ Federation had suggested that the Government should free the exchange rate, which would give immediate relief to all farmers. It was decided to defer further consideration until the findings of the Royal Commission were made known.