UNACCEPTABLE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 103, 2 May 1936, Page 13

UNACCEPTABLE.

FARMERS' ATTITUDE.

MARKETING PROPOSALS.

"SOCIALISM OF EVERYTHING."

(By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.)

WELLINGTON, Friday

The contention that the control proposed in the Primary Products Marketing Bill would be regarded with hostiity in Great Britain was advanced by Mr. W. J. Broadfoot (National, when he spoke to-day in the second reading debate. He said that New Zealand was courting trouble as far as Britain was concerned, and it looked as if Britain was heading toward a policy of duties and subsidies, which would come out of the Dominion's products. "This matter," he said, "must be approached with the greatest care. Britain is annoyed with New Zealand and other Empire, countries for the restrictions that were placed in the way of British trade. There will come a day of reckoning and \he country that imposes restrictions will have to pay a long price in the future."

Mr. Broadfoot said that the people had been misled by the continual appeals for co-operation and good will and the assurances that the people would be taken into the Government's confidence. He read a resolution passed at the South Island Dairy Conference as indicative of the attitude of dairy farmers towards the question of prices. The resolution laid it down that the only equitable basis for payment was to pay the producer a compensatory price to cover the difference in the price level in the country in which the goods were marketed and the price level in which they were produced.

The proposals in the bill, declared Mr. Broadfoot, would be unacceptable to the farmers. "The guaranteed price was a feature of the election," he continued, "yet it has taken the Government five months to produce its scheme. With all its diatribes against boards and experts we find that these almost infallible gentlemen called in the experts to formulate the plan of guaranteed prices. These experts produced some report to the Government. It may have been favourable, or on the contrary. It is only "fair that it should be laid on the table to enable everybody to see what

was in it. We should know the basts of the arguments for and against, particularly as experts were culled in to guide the Government. Why were not the 'co-opts' called in to do the job? People will be disappointed to see that the 'co-opts' fell down on the job." Referring to the previous Government's legislation, Mr. Broadfoot said that there were farmers who were under budgetary control who were better off than before, but all the same no one liked to be under the control of a department. Labour objected to budgetary control, but what about the control involved in the bill?