THE GUARANTEED PRICE

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22111, 5 June 1937, Page 13

THE GUARANTEED PRICE

♦ “NOT BENEFICIAL FOR DAIRY FARMERS” PROBLEM OP RISING COSTS [THE PRESS Special Service.] WESTPORT, June 4. Stating his belief that the guaranteed price system would not be beneficial for dairy farmers, Mr P, O’Regan, retiring president of the West Coast provincial executive of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union, said in his report to the annual conference, held at Westport to-day, that, in the long run, if farmers were given a compensated price, the community, as a whole, including the farmers, would have to be taxed to make up the difference and the farming community would be worse off. The Farmers’ Union had put its weight behind the compensated price scheme, subject to its contention that the price was too low. He did not think farming could show a reasonable return while taxation was so high. Last year the revenue from customs duties totalled £11,000,000, and when the farmer received his money he had to buy his requirements behind that tariff barrier. Mr O’Regan said that in the early stages it appeared that farmers were going to receive something at the expense of the rest of the community, out at the moment it appeared that the whole cost this year would be recovered from the market returns for produce. He considered that the benefits of the guaranteed price scheme had been offset by the agricultural workers’ extension order. The Agricultural Workers Bill had fixed wages, but if every adult farm worker had to receive wages in the terms of that bill, most farms would go out of production. The extension order had fixed certain farm wages at 16s a or 13s 4d a day, plus keep and holidays. The wages appeared low when compared with what a man could earn at sawmilling or on public works, but, again, there was the anomaly that a farm could not be run on that scale of wages.