SHEEP FARMERS' PROBLEMS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 June 1939, Page 7

SHEEP FARMERS' PROBLEMS

CO-OPERATIVE MEAT POOL FAVOURED

Move to Stabilise Ewe Prices SERIOUS POSITION OF INDUSTRY STRESSED MASS MEETING IN MASTERTON Several matters ol vital interest to sheep farmers were discussed at a mass meeting held in the Opera House, Alasterton, yesterday afternoon. There was an attendance of about three hundred, though numbers were arriving and leaving throughout the afternoon. A proposal put forward by Mr L. T. Daniell to make a levy to form a co-operative meat pool was favoured by 75 votes to 48. Many of those in opposition considered the .scheme a good one. but were against handing it over to the Marketing Board. Very emphatic views were expressed against suggestion to extend the guaranteed price scheme to meat and wool and the meeting expressed its disapproval of the present college system of election of producers’ representatives on the Meat Board. The chairman was Mr Hugh Morrison, president of the Wairarapa Provincial Executive of the Farmers'’ Union, associated with whom was Mr A. McDonald, president of the Wairarapa Sheepowners’ Federation. Also on the platform were Mr L. T. Daniell and Sir William Perry.

Stating that the meeting had beer, called to discuss the position of sheep farmers in this district, Mr McDonali. said that as president of the Wairarap. Sheepowners’ Federation he had received letters from 24 farmers who had written about the deplorable position in which they had been placed. Twenty of these farmers, said Mr McDonald, had never been to the Mortgage Ad justment Commission for relief and no one could say they were not good farmers. The budgets they had put for ward showed that their position wat very bad. BIGGEST SINGLE INDUSTRY.

Sheep farming, said Mr Morrison, was the biggest single industry in New Zealand. The year before last, the sheep farmer, from exports and loca: consumption, received £47.000.000 and the dairy farmer £33,000,000. A diffi cult position faced the today. There were two sections of sheep farmers and according to the latest available returns there were about 33,000,000 sheep in New Zealand. The fat lamb farmer, on the lowland anc, better class country, produced about 10,000,000 lambs per year, 9,000,000 oi which were sent overseas. The farmei on the second and third-class country produced most of the wool, ewes atm wethers for export. All were aware that during the past two seasons, the fat lamb breeder had not had a very good lime. The year before last the facial eczema epidemic was estimated to have resulted in a loss of £ 1.000,001 while this year there had been a heavydrop in the price of ewes. The position of the fat lamb breeder, however, was better than the-other section of sheep farmers. The outlook for farmers ol second and third-class country was. serious, as in addition to the fall in prices they had deterioration and land erosion to deal with. Mr Morrison proceeded to refer to the evidence brought forward regarding deteriorated land at a conference held in Wanganui recently. It appeared to him that they would have to accept a much lower price for ewes and wethers in the future than they had obtained in the past. FUTURE OF WOOL. Passing on to refer to wool, Mr Mor rison said the future outlook was very serious. According to information he had just received from the International' Wool Secretariat the developments that were taking place in staple fibre were enormous. The phenomenal growth in the manufacture of staple fibre was nothing short of disquieting. In 1932 the world production of staple fibre was 20,000,0001b5. In 1938 it was 1.934.000,0001b5. The 1938 production amounted approximately’ to the entire wool clip of Australia, South Africa. New Zealand and South America. In Great Britain staple fibre was selling at lOd per lb and this had to be compared with clean scoured wool which was soiling at 20d to 21d for 64‘s. The advantage to the wool substitute could

be seen, with the latter selling at about, nail the price of scoured wool. The greatest incentive to increase the use of staple fibre would come from high prices for wool and it already appeared reasonably certain that the present volume of production- of staple fibre was acting as a brake on wool prices and prevented a return to the high values which wool reached on occasions in recent years. Wool today in New Zealand was being kept up at about 9d per lb. Really, they could not produce wool under Is per lb and pay costs. In spite of rearmament and .with the exchange in operation, they were actually only obtaining about 7ld pgr lb on sterling in the Old Country. It looked as if they would have low prices permanently. Ewes were down, .nutton was down and wool was down while costs were 150 per cent higher than before the war. On rough country it was almost impossible to see how i farmer could work it except at a loss. A lot of country had been abandoned and a man with both good and scrubby land would have to let the scrub land go and live eu his best land. As far as he could see a lot of,country would be going out of production in the next ten -.»• twenty years. ADJUSTMENTS NEEDED.

Mr Morrison proceeded to read extracts from a report of an interview with a representative of the Argentine Government and Meat Board who had recently toured New Zealand who, referring to high costs of production, expressed the view that a general adjustment should be made as soon as possible for the benefit of the country. In some cases the costs were higher than the price obtainable on the in • tc-rnalional markets, while taxation per capita was five times heavier in New Zealand than it was in the Argentine. Mr Morrison also referred to local industry' and to the fact that the only hundred per cent raw material for manufactures in New Zealand was produced by the farmer. About 25 uer cent of factory employees in New Zealand were engaged solely in manufactures from New Zealand raw material. Canada, South Africa and Australia all had great wealth in minerals whereas New Zealand was poorly supplied with minerals for local industry. The report on the Onekaka deposits showed that iron was only present in small quantities and that meant that if New Zealand wanted raw materials for local industries, such things as iron, copper, etc, would have to be imported. That raw material could only be supplied from the exports of this Dominion and who found the money for exports? The whole of the exports of New Zealand were produced by the primary industries and the rest of the secondary industries were dependent on what farmers produced to carry on. Without the primary production of this country it was impossible to carry on secondary industries.

STANDARD OF LIVING. For the past 30 or 40 years New Zealand had had the highest standard of living in the world, said Mr Morrison, and what was the foundation of that high standard of living? New Zealand became the biggest exporters per capita in the world and without these exports wew Zealand would have found it impossible to set such high standards. As far as they could see they could only look for exports from the land and farming was going to continue to be the basic industry of this country. Today costs were getting so high that the basic industry was being crushed. If that happened it would be impossible to keep up the high standard of living as in the past and not only would the farmer become poorer but the rest of the people of this country as well. Nothing on God’s earth would stop that, said Mr Morrison in conclusion. MR DANIELL’S OUTLINE. “From being public enemy No 1 the sheep farming industry has how become economic problem No 1,” said Mr L. T. Daniell, in giving a review of his ewe stabilisation scheme. Mr Daniell proceeded to refer in detail to the financing of his scheme, which sought to impose a levy of 4d per carcase. Prices of ewes, he pointed out, had dropped from 18s last year to 9s this year, although the price of meat in butchers’ shops was the same. They had to get the price of the ewe back to 14s. He pointed out that levies by way of land tax, increased costs, killing charges, etc, amounted to 3s 3d per 601 b carcase whereas his scheme, which aimed at directly benefiting the industry, asked for only 4d. After stressing the statistical strength of his scheme, Mr Daniell detailed steps he had taken to see if the scheme could be implemented. He had approached the Prime Minister, who had assured him that he wanted to see the economic position improved and would consider hearing representations from Wairarapa farmers. Mr Daniell stated that, if necessary, the scheme could be extended to beef. He moved: “That this meeting endorses the proposal to levy the necessary fraction of a penny per lb to form a co-operative meat pool.” Mr Morrison seconded the motion. Sir William Perry asked what would happen about wether mutton. “If you put up the price of ewes the butchers will all buy wethers,” he observed. “It opens up a big question,” replied Mr Daniell, “as, after all, a 'cardinal blunder was made by the Meat Board in restricting ewes. The ewe is the basis of all farming economy and it is being restricted by our Meat Producers’ Board.”

SIR WILLIAM PERRY’S VIEWS. Sir William Perry said the scheme to him appeared to have a lot of weak points in it. The only money coming from outside the farming community would be a small amount from the cities. Practically all the money would be provided by the farmers themselves and it seemed to him taking money out of one pocket and putting it in another. If the prices of ewes for killing were put up the butchers would order wethers. Sir William Perry said that if the scheme meant the handing over of the meat industry to a Government department he for one was not in favour of it. Mr Daniell had hinted that the Marketing Board should handle it and Sir William said he would never agree to that. Referring to quotas, he said the Meat Board was doing everything possible to find markets and deal with the extra meat. Freezing companies were cutting heavy ewe carcases and sending away legs and other portions. . The whole matter was being looked into from every angle and he felt certain that there would be very little left over at the end of the year. He was not a prophet, though the chairman had been making prophecies about the future, but, said Sir William, “don’t climb your hill until you get to it” (hear, hear). Sir William explained that New Zealand was opposed to having anything to do with a mutton council and the Farmers’ Union was blaming the Meat Board and the Government for not agreeing to such a commodity council. The fact was, however, that the same men would deal with lamb and mutton as dealt with beef. The Meat Board had discussed the question of a subsidy on a certain number of ewes to try to ■ keep the prices right. New Zealand was going to absorb quite a large quantity of ewes in the works and he believed there would be very little further trouble. The Meat Board was investigating every avenue to meet the position in New Zealand. COSTS TOO HIGH.' Mr J. M. James observed that costs today were greater than the industry could stand and it was time that something were done. Support for Mr Daniell's scheme was also voiced by Mr Duncan McGregor, who said if the Meat Board put a subsidy on meat generally the thing would be done. He said he could not see a great deai wrong with the scheme. His whole feeling was against interference, but could anyone see an alter native? They had either to get behind Mr Daniell or the Meat Board to keep up the price of the fat ewes. Mr R. D. Kebbell asked if the Meat Board did clean up the surplus ewes would it make the position any better? The only reason he could see why the Meat Board should not run the scheme was that, it was thought not capable of running it. Mr Daniell said he could not hand the scheme over to the Meat Board. If the Marketing Board by a stroke of the pen, could increase the price of pigs why could it not do likewise with ewes? If they handed it over to the Meat Board, the freezing companies' 1 interests, Mi- Daniell alleged, would be taken before the producers’ interests. He stated that the Meat Board had had a chance to carry out the scheme, as he had approached several members; it had restricted ewes without sufficient consideration and it was a good deal of a secret society as far as giving information was concerned. Mr H. Hewitt: “The scheme -is a very good one but if you are giving it to the Marketing Board to hell with it.” After further discussion a vote was taken, the result being: For, 75; Against, 48.