"FARMERS WANT IT."

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 62, 15 March 1938, Page 10

"FARMERS WANT IT."

SHAREMILKING BILL. PROTECTION OF INTERESTS. (By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Monday. While the House was in committee on the Sharemilking Bill this evening, the Minister of Education, Mr. Fraser. explained that the bill had been asked for by sharemilkers themselves and farmers. Among those who had asked for it was the member for Stratford, Mr. Poison, who had urged upon the Prime Minister that it should be introduced and passed, and it was on the personal representations of Mr. Poison that the Prime Minister had allowed the measure to proceed. The Government had no very strong feeling at all on the bill. There was no question of forcing it through by weight of numbers or bludgeoning it through the House. The bill had been introduced to protect the interests of some sharemilkers who were dissatisfied with present conditions —not all sharemilkers because, as had been explained before, a great number of them were perfectly satisfied with their conditions. The agreement embodied in the bill had been signed by the secretary of the Farmers' Union itself on behalf of that body. If it could be demonstrated, said Mr. Fraser, that there was any real opposition by farmers or sharemilkers to the measure it would be open to the House to reconsider the whole matter. The committee stages of the bill were passed at 0.20.