VITAL QUESTIONS

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 28, 27 October 1932, Page 8

VITAL QUESTIONS

Unemployment and Currency FARMERS’ DISCUSSION The urgent necessity for the New Zealand Farmers’ Union setting up a permanent committee in Wellington to determine vital questions of policy such as currency and unemployment was advocated by the president of the union, Mr. AV. J. Polson, at the opening session of the Dominion executive yesterday. Currency and unemployment were the two biggest questions before Parliament to-day, he declared. The primary producers of the Dominion were up against bankruptcy. At a recent meeting it had been stated that a majority of farmers were merely custodians for the mortgagees. The desperate position of the sheepfarmer and dairyfarmer was becoming still more desperate. The unemployment question was a big one, and the union should have some definite policy upon such vital matters. They must have some system by which they could get to grips with such questions. What-was wanted was a permanent committee in Wellington who would give the whole of their time to puzzling out such problems. The union could not afford to sit silent. He felt the position pretty keenly. He had already been assailed as a member of Parliament that he was putting himself out of step with his own organisation on these questions, and he might do the same thing regarding the unemployment problem. The president went on to refer to the Central Bank Bill at present on the stocks on the lines of Sir Otto Niemeyer’s plan. He did not know what was in the Bill, but his considered opinion was that a Bill on the lines of the Niemeyer plan would do more harm than good to New Zealand farmers, as it would cause more deflation. He personally favoured the McMillan plan. A Central Bank was a highly technical subject, and ho would like the executive to set up a small committee to go into the question. He moved to this effect.

Mr. F. Waite (Otago) seconded the motion, stating that; his union had put forward a remit some months ago asking the executive to go into the question of the establishment of central banks. When the banks of New Zealand did not like Sir Otto Niemeyer’s plan and the Labour Party did not like it, it was worth while the farmers of the Dominion having a good look at it. He would like to know the difference between the central reserve banks proposed in the McMillan report and that in Sir Otto Niemeyer’s plan. The president said the McMillan report set out what the objective of a central reserve bank should be, but he had failed to see anything of the kind in the Niemeyer plan. Mr. R. S. Chadwick (Southern Hawke’s Bay) suggested that they should wait and see what was contained in the proposed Bill. The motion to set up a committee was carried.