Guaranteed Prices for Dairy Produce

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22796, 23 August 1939, Page 8

Guaranteed Prices for Dairy Produce

In a statement .designed first and foremost to defend the New -Zealand Farmers’ Union and its president against very clearly located or described—from within the Government, the Dominion- secretary of the union has reopened the controversy oyer the’ guaranteed price system and the Prime Minister’s promise (or threat) to reconsider its continuance; and, neither the moment nor the manner of reopen-

ing the argument seems to have been well chosen. It may be that the union requires to be defended, having been unfairly criticised; it may be that its president requires to be defended, having managed his dispute with the Prime Minister a little unhappily. It was, after all. not Mr Savage’s fault that Mr Mulholland read a quite impossible significance into a sufficiently clear announcement in the House and a still clearer statement to the press. But these point's of right and wrong in the last phase of - a long jangle are at the moment much less important than the possibilities of the Government’s abandoning its settled policy, or modifying it. The chairman of the Dairy Board, last ■ month; said with careful reserve that, while the industry had “ never asked fo.r the scheme ” and had never had an opportunity of voting independently, on it, the special committee set (up to deal with the question on behalf of the industry would meet this month; the Government’s intentions would probably be clarified, and the industry would be enabled “ to review "the matter in the light of recent develop- “ ments.” That recognises the situation and approaches "it as it should be approached. The exchanges between critics and advocates of the scheme, if they were ever useful, have ceased to be; it does not matter how the points in the debate are tallied up, because the Government and the industry are about to reach—or should, be about to reach—a settlement on the facts and in future policy. And the obviously necessary thing is that the Government and the industry should set about this business with minds clear of prejudice and of heat. Mr Mulholland’s misconception of the terms on which the Government can restore to the industry the management of its own affairs must go. On • the other hand, the Government must at last make up its mind, absolutely, whether the guaranteed price scheme, if it is continued, will operate as a subsidy scheme or as a long-term price equalisation scheme. The secretary of the Farmers’ Union obligingly paraphrases his president’s interpretation of Mr Savage’s statement, but does not do the only thing that would have helped; he does not indicate that the president'and the union have dropped the expectations that the paraphrase drops. As for the Government, the Minister for Agriculture, in June, deferred the question whether the season’s’ deficit in the Dairy Account would be charged on the Consolidated Fund: Mr Nash, he said, would settle that on his return. Certainly, Mr Lee Martin reminded ’-is Dunedin audience that no indication had been given that further deficits would be met from the Consolidated Fund. Certainly, too, the Budget does not provide expressly for it. But the question is open. It is one that will have to be answered in principle as well as specifically.