MAYOR HECKLED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 141, 17 June 1938, Page 11

MAYOR HECKLED.

RECEPTION INCIDENT.

PRIME MINISTER'S TOUR

ENTHUSIASTIC WELCOMES

(My T.1.-r.M'h.— Picss Association.)

XEW PLYMOUTH. Thursday

The Prime Minister, the Kt. Hon. M. J. Savage, accompanied by the Minister of Mines, the Hon. l>. e\ Webb, toured •South Taranaki to-day aud received enthusiastic welcome* at several towns and stojipinrr places. Waverley. Pa tea, Kakaramea. Mokoia, Haw em and Eltliam were visited, and in the evening Mr. Savage reached Stratford, to receive a warm welcome. An unpleasant incident occurred at a civic reception in the borough chamber* at Stratford before Mr. Savage aUdreeeeU a. crowded meeting in the Town Hall. A controversy hud been raging for some days over the decision of the Mayor. Mr. Percy Thomson, to hold the reception in the borough rhambere instead of the Town Hall. The approaches to the chamber* and the reception room were packed with people and when the Mayor rose to welcome the Prime Minister* he was subjected to noisy heckling. Mr. \V. J. Poison. M.1 , ., was also heckled, but with more good humour. Guaranteed Price Policy. Mr. Savage was warmly cheered at a public meeting later. * He devoted most of hie speech to a defence of the guaranteed price system. "The question of guaranteed prices for butterfat is probably as well known in Taranaki as Mount Egmont." he said. "I take it most of you look at one as often as the other, and there can be no doubt that if each is looked at in a clear light both are equally attractive and enduring. You have heard something of the hollow suggestion that, because I assured the conference of provincial delegates of the Farmers' Union at Wellington that if the dairy farmers really wanted a special tribunal to fix prices each season they would get it, the Government was running away from it« plans and its obligations.

"The Government has no intention of shirking its obligations. Its willingness to consider the appointment of a pricefixing tribunal means nothing more than further proof of the Government's desire to meet the wishes of the working dairy farmer. We want to get the best possible returns for the producer of butter and cheese. "Any fair-minded man cannot fail to admit that the dairy farmer never before enjoyed the eame security and standard of comfort as he experiences to-day," said the Prime Minister. "There can be no simpler test than this. What would have happened had there been no guaranteed price and the dairy farmer had been left to the mercy of oversea* market fluctuations? Expressed in pounds of butterfat, the monthly butterfat payments would have ranged from 10|d to 7fd per lb. Cost Figures Wanted. '"Under the Labour Government's guaranteed price «ystem mauy butter manufacturing companies paid a uniform payment of 11 Jd per lb of butterfat each .month. Companies ultimately paid out an average price for the season of over , 13Ad per lb for butterfat. There have been fib Veeoriti thoughts about the position. The statutory ground for making adjustments was prepared in Parliament last eeesion.

"Everything considered, the farmers' criticism of the Government'* plan is largely in regard to the alleged inadequacy of the present guaranteed prices to meet dairy farm and dairy factory costs,*' continued Mr. Savage. "It is known that there u great difficulty in ascertaining farm costs. The Government is anxioiw to have accurate information and it invite* representative organisations and groups of dairy farmera to submit reliable farm cost figures. "There is no desire on the Government's part to do other than live up fully to its price-fixing formula, which actually takes account of farm costs. If farmer* think they can get a fairer price by giving their evidence as to costs to a tribunal with a Supreme Court judge as president, then the Government will not turn down this proposal."