DAIRY SURPLUS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 120, 24 May 1938, Page 8

DAIRY SURPLUS.

GUARANTEED PRICE

" IT BELONGS TO YOU,"

ASSURANCE TO FARMERS

MR. SAVAGE IS <■ FRIEND AT COURT."

(By Telegraph.—Special to "Star.") WKU.IN'CTOX, this day. "Tt belong to vnu." declared the Prime Mini-ter, the l!t. Hon. M. J. Savage, when, in ripening the Interpro\ineinl Conference of the Farmers' Union to-day, lie mentioned that there is a £.l(in,ono surplus in the dairy account, and he expects it to be much more before the season ends.

He promised that if the dairy farmers desire a tribunal lie","led by a Supreme Court judge to lix the guaranteed prices t.licy ran get it. This was one of the conference remits, and Mr. Savage remarked: "1 want to let you into a secret. You have at least one friend at court, and he happens to be the Prime Minister, so if the dairy farmers are satisfied with a tribunal presided over by a Supreme Court judge I will lead you up to Parliament buildings to ask for it, because it will save me an awful lot of worry."

Share of Production. He was not merely speaking for himself, added Mr. Savage, but he was speaking for the Government, and if the farmers wanted that sort of tribunal they would get it. He waf not anxious to out any corners over the question, because prior to the last election he told the farmers they were entitled to an equitable share of New Zealand's production whatever happened in overseas markets. The Government wanted them to go on farming, and they could only do that if they got a fair return for their labour.

Costs of production were always considered in fixing the guaranteed price, but there were people who advocated nomething else which was not new except the name. Unless they faced up to the question of costs they could not solve the farmers' problems.

Returning later to the subject the Prime Minister remarked, "I would be sure if I were you that yon were doing the right thing. Let me give you that final word of warning." The surplus in the dairy account as the result of this season's operations was £500,000, said Mr. Savage, and it would probably be much more before the end of the season. He had heard the Minister of Finance say on the platform that he and his officers were working out at least one plan for making that surplus available to the dairy farmer. He said he hoped that by the tim,e the dairymen met at Napier he would be nble to tell them exactly how it would he made available. Nothing could be olainer. but reports he had aeen only "aid Mr. Nash was going to tell them what was going to happen to it, though actually said the surplus belonged to the dairy farmer.

Basis of Computation. "It means," continued Mr. Savage, "you have the minimum price of 112/, and you are also going to get everything above the minimum you can get in the open market. I have heard a lot of talk about a compensatory price and other schemes, but the guaranteed price cannot be satisfactory unless it takes into account everything in the way of cost of production. Everything was considered in the first ploce, but I am not saying the result was all it might have been. But how could you imagine any set of men sitting down to arrive at a price without taking into account what it was likely to cost the dairy farmer to produce."

Explaining that the Government had other problems of the same kind, Mr. Savage mentioned the Public Service regracling grievances. The Government wag trying to get some sort of tribunal to handle that, "but," he concluded, "I don't know that the Public Service want it, because they would rather come up to hammer the Government,, though I don't think that is a problem the Government is called on to handle."