COMPENSATORY PRICE

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22435, 23 June 1938, Page 12

COMPENSATORY PRICE

PROPOSAL ATTACKED BY MR FRASER DEFENCE OP PRESENT SYSTEM (PEES 3 ASSOCIATION TELECEAM.) DUNEDIN. June 22. A defence of the Government’s guaranteed price • system, together with criticism of the compensatory price proposal put forward by the Opposition, was made by the Hon. P. Fraser during his address to-night. “Opponents of the Government’s guaranteed price,” Mr Fraser said, “want to use it to stir up the animosity of farmers who have benefited from it. The guaranteed price is opposed by the Opposition, and was opposed by the last Government. Indeed, Mr Coates went into astronomical figures to show the enormous cost it was going to be to the country. His figure was about £200,000,000. In the face of actuality, that sort of thing is too foolish. Farmers have benefited to an enormous extent. The reason why the Government brought forward the guaranteed price was that, owing to the vast fluctuations in the price of primary produce, there was nothing but uncertainty. When prices rose, land speculation became rife, and mortgage rates were high. Then prices well. Farmers were so encumbered that many were in danger of having to walk off the land. Then the Government stabilised the prices. “One of the most surprising things is the resentment shown at the action of the Government in stating that the surplus of £600,000 in the dairy industry account from the last year’s operations of the guaranteed price system would go back to the dairy farmers this year. Our opponents are angry, although they had previously complained that we were denying the farmer his rights. They are also angry because we have promised that if they are so willing, the farmers will have a properly representative tribunal to fix the guaranteed price next year. “Mr Hamilton speaks with two voices on this matter,” Mr Fraser continued. “He said on one occasion that for years he had acknowledged the justice of the compensated price, but last year at Invercargill he said he had warned farmers against it because it was dangerous in theory, and likely to be disastrous in practice.” After briefly explaining the history of the compensatory price proposal, Mr Fraser went on to say that there had so far been no explanation of it, and there was not likely to be any. He was sorry to see that Mr Mulholland, president of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union, was so anxious to prejudice the farmers against the Government, -and that a reputedly nonpolitical body was attacking the Government with many weapons, one of which was to get the people to go round the country talking about a compensating price, which was nothing more or less than opposition to tariffs. “The fact remains,” Mr Fraser concluded, “that for the first time in the history of this country, dairy farmers have security, an assured income, reduced mortgages, and stabilised rates of interest.”