BEYOND ALL REASON.

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 214, 8 September 1921, Page 5

BEYOND ALL REASON.

MARKETING OF PRODUCE. ALARMLVG BILL OF COSTS. In a somewhat alarming speech at the annual meeting of the Feilding Farmers' Freezing Co. by Mr. Hugh Burrell, chairman of directors, he said the cost of preparing and marketing primary products was beyond all reason, and the question of labour was without doubt the most serious before the producers to-day. Present costs simply meant bankruptcy for farmers, and bankruptcy for the farmer meant bankruptcy for the Government.

Instances were given by him of the way costs had increased. The total cost of handling and marketing meat, he said, was no less than 4d per lb. c.i.f. To sell ex-store London would cost another making the total charges 4Jd per lb. What prospects, he asked, had the farmer of surviving under this tremendous burden?

A pelt which to-day was -worth 2/10 cost no less than 3£d to prepare and market, while, tallow, valued at £34 per ton, cost £25 to market, notwithstanding a £1 12/8 per ton reduction in frcl-ht. /

Wool cost flld to prepare and market. He had received a rableprram the previous day to the effect that 197 bales of wool ex Athenie averaged 9Jd per lb. Thus it cost OJd to obtain 9Jd, making Hlipe wool only worth 3d per lb on the rthcrp's back.

In face of this they were in receipt of demands from the freezing workers for an increase of 33 1-3 per cent over the rates paid in 1017. The minimum rate of pay demanded for unskilled labourers was -2/(5 per hour and slaughtermen 45/ per 100 sheep and lambs. Greasers and firemen were demanding 24/ per shift of elfiht hours or part thereof.

Something had to be done, and that quickly, for they had no guarantee that the Arbitration Court would not grant these demands. In his opinion the useful days of the Arbitration Court had passed, and tlie whole Art, with its extravagant and costly administration, should bo abolished. He could see nothing for it but for the freezing companies of tliH Dominion to resist these, CX 1, orbitant demands, and in the event of tho men refusing to operatu the works, its happened last year, the farmers must bo prepared to operate- the works themselves or face ruination. There was no alternative, it was one thing or the other.