FARMING PRICE LEVELS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 59, Issue 225, 6 July 1939, Page 8

FARMING PRICE LEVELS.

FAIR REMUNERATION,

ACTION BY PRODUCERS. The following is taken from an arresting article in the “Farmer and Stockbreeder” by Mr Cleveland F.yfe, secretary of the National Farmers’ Union, who was one of the British delegates to tjie Sydney Conference last year Actually, the proceedings of the Ottawa- Committee on monetary ,and financial questions were never mentioned during the -Sydney debates, and it w r as the logic of hard facts that drove the spokesmen of the primary producers of the Empire to the unanimous conclusion that only by controlling the flow of supplies to the United Kingdom market could their industry be placed on a- remunerative basis. And, having reached that conclusion, they then proceeded to agree upon the method by which the necessary regulation could best he effected.

Just as Mr Chamberlain at Ottawa pointed out that the British Government could make an essential- contribution to the working of a scheme on the lines which he suggested by controlling entry to the United Kingdom market, so at Sydney it was appreciated that voluntary action by Empire producers themselves through commodity councils was the alternative to regulation ol imports by our Board ol Trade. It is then, to the Sydney policy that farmers in this country, in common with their brother-farmers in the Dominions. must look ultimately for the restoration of remunemtive price levels and for the reason given by Mr Chamberlain at Ottawa it should be possible to achieve that restoration without damaging the interests of the consuming public. In other words, once we get the Sydney policy fully into operation and have achieved the results which Mr Chamberlain regards as essential, the conditions will have been created under which farmers will be able to make farming pay.

To Safeguard Home Products. In the meantime, price insurance measures must be maintained and extended, and when the Sydney policy is in full operation these measures will remain to safeguard our producers of

the staple farm products against a fall of prices to an unduly low level. It. has been endorsed by the British and Australian Governments, and my information is that it is favourably regarded by the Dominion Government iu Canada. I have been unable to ascertain precisely how matters stand ill New Zealand, hut Press cuttings which I have seen appear to suggest that the Sydney policy, involving- producer-con-trol, docs not fit in with tho economic policy of the New Zealand Government.

I feel confident that, if that bo the official view in New Zealand, it 'must he based upon a complete misapprehension of the actual objectives which were agreed upon at Sydney and of the teal needs of the situation as defined by Mr Chamberlain in Ms Ottawa speech. As a result of Government action, the principle of the Sydney policy lias been applied in the case of beef, mutton and lamb—with definite limitations —* and there is a possibility, I understand, that it may be similarly applied for the purpose of regulating the flow to the British market of supplies of processed milks.