HARD TIMES FOR SHEEPFARMERS

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22590, 21 December 1938, Page 17

HARD TIMES FOR SHEEPFARMERS

TO THE EDITOB OT THE PRESS Sir,—The New Zealand sheepfarmer is having a pretty rock time. Having an inside knowledge of the facts, I can state that a large majority slipped back in their finances the last year. If this goes on we are heading for a major calamity which will involve all classes. Diseases, taxes, tariffs, difficult harvest conditions, high wages and costs all round are making the farmer the ehopping-block for the rest of the community.

If the Arbitration. Court were to order a reduction in wages of 5s a week there would be strikes from one end of the country to the other, yet the farmer has to face a drop of 5s a fleece in halfbred wool, and 5s a head on fat sheep, with a smile—or call it a grin. The sheepfarmers' main prop is the fat lamb, which is still at a payable price, but I am told that with the New Year he must face a drop of a id per lb—why I know not except that three men in a back parlour in a city office ordain) that it shall be so. Beautiful milk lambs will be coming in till the end of January, and there is no justification for such a drop in price. Two of the freezing companies pose as farmers' concerns run in th\? interests of farmers, and we have a right to look to them to protect our interests.—Yours, etc., RUSTICUS. December 20, 193 a