Professor taken to task

Press, 18 October 1976, Page 7

Professor taken to task

The economics department at Lincoln College would be far more usefully employed if it could find some way of showing New Zealanders the folly of living beyond their means, the South Island director of the New Zealand Sheep and Cattlemen’s Association (Mr S. A. Taylor) said. He was replying to criticism by Professor W. O. McCarthy, professor of marketing at the college, of remarks made by Mr T. J. Atchison, chairman of the electoral committee of the Meat and Wool Boards recently. Mr Atchison said that politicians, bureaucrats and academics posed the greatest threat to the continuation of the open or free marketing of wool through the auction system. “Once a year meat and wool producers are given, and use extensively, the opportunity of electing their representatives on the electoral committee, which in turn elects a chairman,” Mr Taylor said. “It is therefore very disturbing to read Professor McCarthy’s opinion that Mr Atchison, elected in the most democratic way possible to that responsible position, is ‘an amateur farmer politician with a certain backwoods facility for demagogy, but with little appreciation of the reality of the world fibre market.’ “Professor McCarthy claims that no academic would descend to such argument. The inference, be-

cause he has done just that, is obvious. “it is this arrogant elegant disdain inside the university that incenses the investor and the work force. "The economics department of Lincoln College would be far more usefully employed if it could find some way of showing New Zealanders the folly of living beyond their means. Never a word of criticism of the leadership of Sir Tom Skinner or Mr Lincoln Laidlaw, but always of farm leaders for the simple reason that everyone who has turned a sod in his garden or walked his dog thinks he could be a successful farmer. “Instead of denigrating wool, the wool market and wool producers. Professor McCarthy could well join with Mr Ola Rian, of Norse Wood Industries, or Mr T. Baxendine, of the Wool Board, in constructive optimistic promotion of the one outstanding fibre of the rapidly cooling energy starved world. . . “We do agree, however, that wool is the concern of all, but we must repeat ad nauseum that it is not the property of all. “It belongs to the producer till he sells it. The wool farmer has discharged over and over again every debt contracted with the Government. “The Wool Board is taking steps to lightly but certainly not entirely buffer the market. Had we accepted the advice of Professor McCarthy and

his academic ilk two years ago, we would be selling (or giving) wool to American mills, and consequently to everyone else, at around 100 c per kilogram. And carpets would not be any cheaper.” (A reference to representations by American carpet mills for wool at a more stable price). ‘‘When we want expoert advice we will engage the best available expertise. It is the gratuitous advice or interference that is so damaging to morale and markets.

“Under separate cover I am lodging with "The Press” three predictions about wool politics from this moment to one year hence . As a backwoodsman. I challenge Professor McCarthy or any academic to do the same,” Mr Taylor said.