FARMERS' VIEWS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 220, 17 September 1938, Page 13

FARMERS' VIEWS.

EXPERTS IGNORED.

DISAPPOINTMENT EXPRESSED

CONTRIBUTION TO INCREASE.

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.)

WELLINGTON, Friday.

"There will be considerable disappointment among members of the farming community that the report of the Guaranteed Price Committee was not adopted by the Government," says an official statement by the New Zealand Farmers' Union, issued to-day. "Apart altogether from the question of the actual price, the fact that the recommendations of a first-class tribunal have been departed from will be viewed with regret by farmers, all the more so when the committee was unanimous in its finding. "The Government's departure from the labour standard of output agreed on by the comfnittee is difficult to understand, particularly in view of the fact that the tribunal had among its members men whose knowledge of the dairy industry was second to none in New Zealand. Comparing the labour reward offered the dairy farmer with the rewards offered to the men who handle his produce, it becomes evident that the dairy farmer is expected to work harder for less money than workers whose wages are fixed by the Arbitration Court. The committee gave the Government a chance to bring the farmers' reward a little nearer the wages of the people referred to, but the Government has preferred not to accept the opportunity. "It should be remembered that a good proportion of the increase will go to the farmer's employees, also that the dairy farmer is himself contributing from last year's surplus at least one-third of the projected increase."