"ALREADY GONE."

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 102, 1 May 1936, Page 9

"ALREADY GONE."

THAT EXTRA PENNY. | 1 HIGHER COST OF LIVING. MR. SAVAGE FOR ENGLAND ? (By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Thursday. A prediction that within six or eight months the Prime Minister, Mr. Savage, would be 011 his way to Great Britain was made in the House of Representatives to-night by Mr. H. G. Dickie (National, Patea) when speaking in the second reading debate on the Primary Products Marketing Bill. The measure, he said, was introduced at an unfortunate time. The Ottawa Agreements would expire next year, and it was essential that New Zealand should be well represented when fresh agreements were made. The position of the farmers in Great Britain had been touched upon by the Prime Minister, and Minister of Finance, who had stated that they were receiving bonuses and subsidies. That statement was true, but there was a vast difference between the methods adopted in Great Britain and the socialistic and dictorial methods outlined in the bill. The farmers were not going to be given a vote on the scheme in Xew Zealand, but in England they were given a vote and a two-thirds vote was required before they came under a J scheme, and they could pull out on a I bare majority vote.

Tho methods to be adopted under the bill, he said, did not square very well with the Labour party's democratic principles, he referred to the position of share-milkers, who moved from one farm to another. He asked how they were going to be recompensed if a surplus for one year was put into some account with the Reserve Bank, and balanced up on some later occasion. It was particularly desirable that New Zealand should have more or less a clean sheet when approaching the question cf a new trade agreement. They all knew that Australia was not enjoying the same popularity in England as was New Zealand, simply because it had its Paterson plan, which was regarded as a species of dumping. Land as Safe Investment. The Prime Minister had stated that lie was going to take precautions against a boom in land values. That was a pious sort of hope to express, but it was not easy to put it into effect. They knew that there was considerable movement in land transactions since the change of Government. It was a fact that many people were looking with misgivings at the Government's financial policy, and, as was well known, the best thing to do when anyone began monkeying with the currency was to get hold of some fixed asset, such as land. It was a matter of simple arithmetic to

discover was going to be the guaranteed price. On an ciglit years basis the weighted average for butter was a little over 1/ a lb, and for cheese about 13Jd. If they threw in an extra pennv for luck they would be somewhere near the guaranteed price, but the prospects for this season pointed to butterfat realising only about a penny below that figure, and so far as the dairy farmers were concerned they would be prepared to accept 13d a lb. The cost of living was going to rise as a result of the Government's policy, and the farmer might easily lose in higher costs the extra penny a lb that the guarantee would give him. In fact it could be said that the extra penny was already gone. Mr. J. A. Lee (Government, Grey Lynn): In that case we had better get in early with a guaranteed price. Mr. Dickie replied that it was all very well for anyone to talk about costless credit, but it had to be paid for in some way.