The Press Tuesday, December 22, 1925. The Wheat Problem.
The Government has lost little time in making effective its decision to control this season's wheat-crop, for the Order-in-Council making the regulations appears in the current issue of the " Gazette." Since the Order was signed on Monday last, it is plain that the meeting held last Wednesday was quite useless, and that the responsible Minister, the Hon. •Mr Nosworthy, had made up his mind to ignore any protest against the resolution of the Ashburton conference. For all he knew, Wednesday's meeting might have condemned the control of this season's wheat at the figures arranged at Ashburton; but he had decided that whatever the real feeling 3 of the growers might be, there would be control this season. It will be said in defence of the regulations that the Minister merely hastened to give effect to what seemed to him to be a representative meeting of the wheat interests. That, in fact, is what the Minister has practically said already, and we hope, therefore, that the Farmers' Union and the " con"trol" party will invite the Minister to show at once the same goodwill towards the complementary part of their policy by guaranteeing over 7s a bushel for three years. We hope that they will do this, for a special reason. The special reason is this: that the "control" party and the Farmers' Union enthusiasts who, as Mr J. Carp proudly confesses in a letter we print to-day, rolled up last Wednesday to strike a blow for the Union at any cost to the farmers, will be all the better for learning fr6m the Minister's own mouth that it was childish of them to expect three years of control at good prices.
It is so pleasant to hear from Mr Carr that every member o£ the Union fully endorses "The Press's "policy of adequate protection that it is almost difficult to reproach them for not having spent in supporting that policy the time and eloquence that went towards the obstruction of it. It is not a question df "The Press's" giving assistance to the Farmers' Union: what is most needed by the wheat-growers is a determination by the Farmers' Union to take "The Press's" advice. And the first of our recommendations is that the Union shall press the Government to state quite clearly the grounds of public interest upon which the new regulations have been gazetted. The Government will be obliged to admit that it is concerned to keep the industry going. The farmers' representatives can then reply that the. best thing the Government can do, in that case, m to .give the industry a measure Of fixed tariff protection at least eqnal to the duty On, say, boots. Thefts is no secondary industry in New Zealand j--important and valuable as Borne Of them are—comparable in importance and value with the wheat industry, and this industry is not only quite inadequately protected, but is as liable to bo stripped bare of protection as to be controlled against the interests of the wheat-growers. Farmers must make up their minds—the discussion which has occupied so much space in " The Press " lately will have made up the minds of many of them—that they are courting defeat and grief by going on hoping for real and substantial benefits from the policy of control. They must ask for fixed adequate protection, and they can rely upon the strength of their case to overcome the anti-agrarittn voices which will cry out about a "dear loaf." Everyone knows that the average household pays extra-shillings on beef and boots and beer for every extra penny it ever pays on bread—pays these extra shillings without a murmur.
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Bibliographic details
Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18571, 22 December 1925, Page 12
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615The Press Tuesday, December 22, 1925. The Wheat Problem. Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18571, 22 December 1925, Page 12
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