BURDEN OF COSTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 November 1939, Page 4

BURDEN OF COSTS

PRIME MINISTER’S YIEW PROBLEM NOT PECULIAR TO FARMERS. NEED OF BALANCED ECONOMY. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. The contention that there was nothing the farmer could say about high costs that could not be said about other sections of the community and that the farmers now had more stability than ever, was advanced by the Prime Minister, Mr Savage, when referring yesterday to a letter he had received from the Dominion president of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union, Mr W. W. Mulholland. This declared that production was threatened by high costs and insufficient labour. "We have been at this problem for months, and it is no new thing,” continued Mr Savage. “Anyone who has to face exchange control with its possible results must have had their minds on making a transformation in New Zealand of shifting men from public works into industry, where they would be producing goods now coming from overseas . Unfortunately some people think a transformation can be made over the weekend, but those with any knowledge of the subject know better. "New Zealand has been in the selfgoverning stage since 1856, and the process of building has been carried on all the time. Now we are asked to change the whole face of things over a weekend. It cannot be done, though we are doing it as rapidly as we can. I would like those complaining of exchange control to think of the benefits from the millions which were accumulated overseas that were all brought back in goods which were passed over the counter by business people. "But that is not nearly enough. We have to get a better balance in our internal affairs. We are anxious to see that farming is extended, but it must be realised that there "are other sections of the community who need some consideration, and if the farmers get more than their fair share of New Zealand’s income other people get less. “If private enterprise cannot provide the production that is necessary for us to carry out our promise to Britain,” concluded Mr Savage, “the Government will have seriously to consider other methods of doing the job.”