RAISE PRICES, NOT LOWER COSTS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 45, 23 February 1939, Page 6

RAISE PRICES, NOT LOWER COSTS

ALTERNATIVE FOR FARMERS '

THE BRITISH POLICY QUOTED

An alternative to the New Zealand Farmers’ Union’s agitation for reduction of costs was advocated by Mr. Claud Smith, of Brunswick, at a meeting of the Wanganui Provincial Executive of the Union yesterday. He suggested a 'request for increased prices for the produce sold by the farmer. Mr. A. S. Ashmore, of Raetihi, who has served on a mortgage relief commission, speaking at the farmers’ rally at Makirikiri on Tuesday was also of opinion that the real problem the farmer was facing was centred in price levels. He advocated what the British farmer was demanding, the treatment of agriculture as an essential industry and the establishment of basic prices for primary products, so that an efficient farmer may secure a fair return for his enterprise and capital and be in a position to pay his men a fair wage. “Costs Will Not Come Down.” ‘‘We will not get costs down,” Mr. Smith said yesterday, “not with this Government. Why not go to the other side of the ledger and get prices put up? The Farmers’ Union brought down a compensated price scheme, but we have not heard much about it lately. Can anybody tell me what the difference is between a compensated prices and a guaranteed price? They are the same and you can call them what you like. If you are going to ask for costs to come down it will mean asking for lower wages and decreased purchasing power. Thn Government says it will give you a guaranteed price. Why don’t you ask for it? The dairy farmers have it now and you will not find a bona fide dairy farmer wanting to go back to the old rafferty rules. As a sheep farmer, I have said, over and a period of years that we should have a guaranteed price. My trouble is not in producing, but in obtaining a price for what I do produce.

"You won’t ask the Government for a guaranteed price because you say that it cannot give it to you,” Mr. Smith continued. “You say that the Government will crash, but the civil servant does not worry about that when he takes his pay. Why should we think about it? We sheep farmers are the only ones who are ‘mugs’ today. We ask for what the dairy farmer has, a guaranteed price.” Mr. Nelson Hughes (Maxwell): You say the dairy farmer has a guaranteed price? How did the £600,000 get into the pool?

Mr. Smith: I am not going to argue as to why the £600,000 got into the pool or why it did not. It belongs to the dairy farmers. They are better off, and they know it. Mr. W. Morrison (Maxwell) said that the farmer was not going to ask for increased prices because he knew he would have to pay them. Mr. Smith: Then let us get something in return for what we have to pay. The solution will not be found by reducing wages and purchasing power.

Itoyal Commission No Good. Mr. Ashmore's argument at Makirikiri on the same subject was that the appointment of a Royal Commission, or any other sort of commission, to deal with farmers’ costs would not solve the difficulty. He quoted from the English press the demands of British farmers to have agriculture treated as an essential industry and the fixation of prices for primary produce which would enable the farmer to obtain a fair return from his own labour, from his investment, of capital and to enable him to pay fair wages. “The whole thing is a question of price levels," Mr. Ashmore said, quoting sheep at 24s one year and 16s the next. “Without stability of price levels you cannot work any farm as it should be worked," he said. "We have reached a stage where the system is collapsing. The opinions expressed here to-night are sound in their way, but, mentally, they are based on the gold standard, which is dead and gone and will never come back. It has been said by the Government that the Farmers’ Union will one day come crawling for guaranteed prices. I believe they will have to.”

Other members of the union, both at Makirikiri and at the meeting yesterday, were emphatic that costs would have to come dow.n.

"In pure self-defence the Farmers’ Union must formulate a long-range policy which will permit this vital national industry to continue to exist,” said Mr. R. O. Montgomerie. “At the moment the farmer in the back country is facing a crisis. The consensus of opinion is that much of the back country land will have to be abandoned, though it is further considered that under a lower scale of costs that land could he successfully farmed. . . We must force a realisation that guaranteed prices for the sheep-farmer would already, had they been given, have caused a crisis in the Reserve Bank. The day ot ‘hand-out’ is over."

"Farmers must get the rights due to them or be crushed under the growing burden ot costs," said Mr. Keith Mason (King Country).