DAIRY INDUSTRY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 129, 2 June 1934, Page 13

DAIRY INDUSTRY.

LABOUR PARTY'S POLICY.

REVIVAL ELAN OUTLINED

What the Labour party would do to place tli© dairying industry on a sound basis was outlined by Mr. Ml <£. Savage, Leader of the Opposition, in aft address at Thames on Thursday evening. He;, said, the only rational method of ha-iidling the problem was to pay the producer a price for his product that would cover the cost of materials and labour used.

Mr. Savage said that the Labour party, if it were in office, would introduce the following methods of maintaining: and extending the industry: A guaranteed price for butterfat; security of tenure to farmers competently using their land; readjustment of mortgages and land costs on a _basis of guaranteed prices; negotiated agreements with Great Britain and other-countries . for the marketing of dairy produce, with reciprocal contracts for the importation of goods which cannot be economically produced in the Dominion.

On the subject of increasing prices Mr. Savage said it was necessary to realise that a country's home and foreign trade could not for any considerable time exceed the purchasing power of its own people. The; only means -that could be used for the expansion of trade, either at Home or abroad, was to expand the incomes of New Zealand citizens. .

That the time was long overdue for proper planning: of production and overseas trade, was Mr. Savage's emphatic contention. The present tendency was to restrict existing forms of production by means of the introduction of quotas. If the Dominion's exports were to b'i restricted there appeared to be only one logical alternative, namely, to build the home market. That could be done only by the development of New Zealand industries.