DAIRY PAYMENTS

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20504, 21 May 1938, Page 8

DAIRY PAYMENTS

GOVERNMENT’S CLAIM "RIDICULOUS ASSERTION” FACTORY DIRECTOR'S CRITICISM Comment on the views expressed by the Minister of Marketing, the Hon. W. Nash, with respect to dairy produce payments, in his broadcast address from Hutt on Monday evening, has been made by Mr J. E. Leeson, a director of the Morrinsville Cooperative Dairy Company, Limited. Mr Leeson said Mr Nash had compared the payment of 9d per lb. butterfat to producers during the depression with the average return of 13.68 d for the current season and had claimed that that was the result of the action of the Government in regulating the market. Such an assertion, said Mr Leeson, was ridiculous, and might be accepted by the city audiences he addressed, but it would not be believed by the thousands of intelligent farmers who were listening in. The latter knew that the increased price was due to the improvement in world conditions, and was in no way caused by any action of a Socialist Government. These farmers also knew that had the Government not increased their costs, both in the factory and on the farm, and had not commandeered their produce, they would be in a much better financial position to-day. Produce Unsold Referring to the surplus of £530,000 in the Dairy Industry Account, Mr Leeson submitted that Mr Nash did not tell his listeners that up to May 12 only dairy produce made up to January 20 would have arrived in England and probably would then be unsold, so that there was undoubtedly 40,000 tons still unsold. Most likely there would be a still larger surplus in the Government's Dairy Industry Account by the end of the season. The speaker pointed out that an average of Id per lb. butterfat represented £1,390,000. Concluding, Mr Leeson said that the majority of New Zealand dairy farmers had now found that they were in a much worse position than they would have been had the Government kept out and allowed them to conduct their own business.