COMPENSATORY PRICE

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 226, 20 June 1936, Page 10

COMPENSATORY PRICE

Dairy Producers Approve Of Payment

“ONLY EQUITABLE BASIS” Dominion Special service. Hastings, Juno 19. N A remit from the Cambridge Dairy Company urging the payment of a compensatory price for produce was approved by the national dairy conference to-day. The remit was as follows: — “That the only equitable basis of payment for primary produce is to pay to the producer a compensatory price to cover the difference between the price level in the country in which his goods are marketed as compared with the price level in tlie, country in which his goods are produced.” The principle of a compensatory priee was explained by Colonel S. J. E. Closey. New Zealand’s necessary imports, he said, were obtained as the result of the exports of the farmers. The farming community had a right to be considered, for it had earned for the Dominion a gigantic return. The problem was the closing of the gap between the prices in New Zealand which the farmer had to pay and the returns received on the English market. The question whether costs were brought down or prices were moved up could be left to the technical advisers of the Government, but New Zealand would never be sound while the gap existed. In fixing guaranteed prices consideration had to be given to the price level where farmers bought and the price level in the country where they sold their produce. Mr. A. J. Sinclair (Te Awnmutu) said that he approved in principle what Colonel Closey had said, but no information had been given as to how the scheme would work. If a compensatory price meant influencing the currency or raising the exchange, the conference would be reluctant about endorsing it.

Colonel Closey said it was not necessary to show how the scheme should operate. The immediate necessity was to mobilise farming interests, and when that had been done and the city people had been convinced that what farmers were asking for was right, a technique could be evolved.

The remit was carried on the voices.