SHEEPFARMERS’ DIFFICULTIES

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22796, 23 August 1939, Page 10

SHEEPFARMERS’ DIFFICULTIES

BURNETT PREDICTS LIGHT WOOL CLIP methods' of? /’assistance i SUGGESTED .} \ ■" / s~tl tX* [Fyom Our Parliamentary Reporter.] WELLINGTON, August 22. warning that a light wool clip might be expected this year was given by ( Mr /T. -jD.t Burnett (Opposition, Temuka)' during the financial debate in 1 the House of Representatives to-day. Mr Burnett also suggestedAwo methods by'which the Government might help the high-country sheepfarmer. Snow and floods would contribute towards a light clip, Mr Burnett said, and a prudent- Government would be on : the alert -to ’ counter this possible set-back in the national income. He suggested that 12ihourly regional weather forecasts might be made available for the benefit of sheepfarmers in high country, so that they could have better warning than was now available of coming storms. The second proposal was that the Minister for Transport (the Hon. R. Semple) should call a conference of all counties in snow areas to discuss the latest methods of clearing snow from roads. This was a task which involved ample preparation; but it was a form of insurance for sheepowners when it came to transporting their stock. “There is a feeling among primary producers that they are not getting a fair deal,” Mr Burnett said, when discussing the Government’s policy. As a result, he claimed, there was growing sourness and discontent among primary producers, who might be called the men in the front line. They felt that the men in the lines of communications, the Dominion’s other industries, were taking too much out of the general pool compared with what the exporter was receiving. “It ill behoves people in their cheap superiority to level sneering criticism at the man on the land, the cocky,” he continued. The real trouble was that the present Government was composed largely of idealists, .and unfortunately the farmer depended on world prices, which did not coincide with increasing internal costs. The mixed farmer was to-day in a parlous state. The case of a man who was threatened with being sold up by a Government department because of arrears of interest amounting to £l6B was quoted by Mr Burnett.

Mr Semple: That is worse than Ned Kelly. A Government member: There must be something else in it. Mr S. G. Holland (Opposition, Christchurch North): Yes. A Ned Kelly Government.