FARMERS' UNION.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 128, 1 June 1936, Page 12

FARMERS' UNION.

IS IT TOO SMALL? COMPULSORY MEMBERSHIP. PROPOSAL NOT FAVOURED. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) NEW PLYMOUTH, this day. Compulsory membership of the Farmers Union was seriously considered by members of the North Taranaki Union in their conference at Inglewood on Friday. A motion in favour of compulsory membership was moved by Mr. T. T. Murray, 011 behalf of the Toko branch, and was seconded by Mr. W. J. Maloney. It was lost in favour of an amendment bv' Mr. W. T. Me Caw, which stated "that this conference maintains that the principle of compulsory membership is abhorrent and undemocratic, views with alarm certain clauses of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act, and, therefore, urges the Dominion executive to exercise special vigilance to forestall the registration of any union inimical to the Farmers' Unions interests." Mr. Murray said the Prime Minister had stated he would not deal with individuals and would deal only with united bodies.

Mr. Moloney considered it illogical that a few farmers should go on rendering service to the majority. The only way was to get numbers behind them and to resist anything not in the interests of farmers. There were 00.000 or 70,000 outside their ranks and they should grasp this opportunity to get legislative authority.

Mr. Sorenson said farmers could not stop producing as other workers could stop their labour. If there were a number in the union opposed to its interests it would upset the union.

Mr. McCaw asked what right 15 per cent of the farmers had to force the remainder, and referred to the dangers of compulsory unionism.

Mr. H. E. Blyde, the North Taranaki president, said the- Dominion executive was alive to the danger of a body of farmers registering itself as a union of employers.

Mr. W. A. Sheat, opposing compulsory membership, said the idea of forcing everybody into a labour union would be its undoing. He said he would rather see a small body of enthusiastic members than a large body of indifferent ones, and he advised farmers not to be stampeded into compulsory • unionism because the employees were doing it.

Mr. Moloney replied that every Act of the Government was compulsory, and asked why farmers did not resent all the dairy' laws that were imposed on them.