INSULATION FROM SLUMPS

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22592, 23 December 1938, Page 13

INSULATION FROM SLUMPS

to tsb editor or m press. Sir, —I may be out of place in replying to Mr H. M. Burgin’s letter on “Insulation from Slumps.” as he expressed a hope for a reply from some member of the party in power, but I write as an acquaintance of Mr Burgin’s, one who disagrees with most of his views, and one who hopes to remain on friendly terms with him. While fully sympathising with Mr Burgin in his reduced returns, I must confess that his sentiments as expressed in his letter of Wednesday last made me smile. His returns are down, and as he passes my dairy farm frequently, perhaps he feels an urge towards some guaranteed price, a stabilised return with all its advantages. Prominent members of the meat and wool industry have, since the inception of our guaranteed price scheme, come into print with expressions of independence, no Government interference, and a desire to stand on their own feet, accepting the world’s market level. I have heard Mr Burgin himself express such opinions, which are certainly laudable, but only if they are consistent, taking good years with bad years. Mr Burgin’s letter is a typicaj farmer’s letter. If he had an audience of all the sheepfarmers in Canterbury he would be cheered to the echo after reading it out, for heads I win, tails you lose is an appealing slogan to farmers. What is the alternative? The Minister for Marketing has been often reported In the daily papers as saying that the Government would consider extending the guaranteed price scheme to any branch of farming that wanted it, but in the past the sheepfarmers have set their faces against it and probably sympathised with the dairy farmer with all his regulation and compulsion. Now, with falling prices, Mr Burgin uses the term “insulation from slumps”: it sounds better, but his whole letter expresses a hope for guaranteed prices—and why not?

The sheepfarmers would have to submit to the same treatment as we dairy farmers have had, and would be placed on a definite standard of efficiency. They would lose control over the sale of their produce, lose that independence of action in bargaining, selling, and choice of freezing works, all of which the farmer values so much and is worth so little in the end, and lose all that thrill of the wool sale—for what?— For a reorganisation of their farming on a proper business basis, of production on the farm of a saleable commodity with a fixed price level, a margin of profit depending on the farmer’s personal efficiency' not his luck at the sale, overseas fluctuations or the mood of the buyer. This is the logical method of farm production, but I cannot imagine the sheepfarmers submitting to it, because the next wool sale might be up; lamb might be up next year; there may be a war that would send things sky high, or an unregulated system, and Mr Burgin would not want any interference then, nor would he write to “The Press” telling us that he is already £430 up on last year, and hopes to be £7OO up at the end of the year. No, it would be “blow the Government.”—Yours, etc..

TOM E. ROWLANDS. December 22, 1938.