The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY A 1937. NO CONTROL OF WOOL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 45, 23 February 1937, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY A 1937. NO CONTROL OF WOOL.

For the cause that lacks asaistame*. For the wrong that need* reeistanct, For the future in the distance, And the good that ice cmn do.

With wool prices as high as they have been this season, probably the last thing sheep farmers wish for is any interference by the Government in their industry. Mr. Savage intimates t-hat there will be none, as the Government is "not looking: for trouble" and is not anxious to step in unless such action is necessary. This assurance will be welcomed by the sheep industry, for it strengthens the earlier intimation that the Government did no£ propose to bring any industry under the Primary Products Marketing Act except at the industry's expressed wish. The general public also may be pleased that the Government, with "guaranteed prices" for dairy produce still in the experimental stage, does not intend to iucrease, or to risk increasing, the contingent liability on the Budget, by buying wool as well as dairy produce at a fixed price and undertaking the marketing.

The latter part of Mr. Savage's statement is less satisfactory. He rightly uttered a warning to the sheep farmers that they would not always enjoy the current wool prices, but he added that "he could promise woolgrowers that, when things were not so good and they began to get into difficulties, the Government might step in to help them." The implications of such a promise are disturbing. First, let it be remembered that the sheep industry has been helped, and is being helped now, by the high exchange. The higher wool prices rise the more help the industry* receives, as the consequence of a policy which was designed to assist it and other primary industries at a time when prices were unremunerative. It is a policy which "bestows its benefits on the deserving and the undeserving alike.". At a time when the wool, industry, in particular, is enjoying prosperity, it should not be forgotten that both its present and. its prospective condition would be less pleasing but for the policy of the Coalition Government, continued, and likely to be continued, by the present Government. The adoption of the policy by the Coalition Government was the outcome of an intense agitation, in which representatives of the pastoral industry were not silent. With these facts remembered, Mr. Savage's promise of future help, if and when necessary, appears in a different light. Should the sheep industry, or any other industry at present enjoying prosperity, be encouraged to expect that when times are bad the Government will step in and—necessarily at the expense of the rest of the community—give it farther helpf The obvious, prudent course for a farmer or an industry now prosperous is to build reserves. Mr. Savage's statement might be interpreted' as an invitation to the prosperous to spend their money while they have it, because the Government will take care of their future. No such suggestion should receive countenance. A. "heads-I-win-tails-the-community-pays" philosophy would be disastrous just as soon as a sufficient number of people embraced it. And the people in the sheep industry, which used to pride itself on its independence, should be the last to be influenced by such a philosophy.