MEANING OF SUBSIDY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 July 1942, Page 3

MEANING OF SUBSIDY

FARMERS’ UNION REPLIES TO MINISTER. WOOL PRICE QUESTION. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. “It is obvious that the Minister of Agriculture, Mr Barclay, does not appreciate the meaning of the word ‘subsidise,’ ” says an official statement of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union issued yesterday. “It is an entirely novel idea that to ask for the full price of an article is asking for a subsidy. Does the Minister suggest that a coal merchant is asking for a subsidy from the consumer when he asks for the full price of a bag of coal? "To make a correct use of English terms, the plain fact is that Mr Barclay is asking the farmers of New Zealand to subsidise the consumers of woollen goods. That is, he is asking a section of the people to bear a subsidy to the public as a whole. If it is fair to ask the farmers of the Dominion to give the public wool for woollen goods at less than its ruling price, it would be just as fair to ask the railways to carry the wool for less than the usual charge, for the watersiders to handle it for less than their award rate of wages, and for the woollen mill workers to make it up for less than the rates laid down by the Arbitration Court. “Mr Barclay says that he regrets that the conference has again adopted the course of criticising the Government without in any degree making the criticism constructive. If he will read the newspaper reports he will see some very constructive criticism. “The Minister’s statement that his relations with the Meat and Dairy Boards are most happy might lead people to believe that the Meat Board is in favour of the farmers’ standing the cost of the subsidy proposed by the Minister. The Farmers’ Union has yet to learn that this is the case.”