GUARANTEED PRICE

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 233, 30 June 1939, Page 11

GUARANTEED PRICE

Discussion By Dairy

Conference

PROTEST SUGGESTED Non-Payment Of Taxes Seen As One Method The fixation of the guaranteed price for the coming dairying season at the figure recommended by the Price Advisory Committee for. last year was advocated yesterday by the National Dairy Conference in Wellington. A suggestion that unless farmers were given a guaranteed price satisfactory to them, they should resort to “passive resistance” by not paying their taxes was made by Mr. W. Harbutt, Cambridge, mover of the remit, which initiated the discussion.

The remit was that the conierciice should endorse the resolution passed at the Dominion Dairy Board Conference, asking that the guaranteed price for 1939-40 be that recommended by the Price Advisory Committee for 1938-39. This remit was carried. Discussion, however, of what action dairy companies should take if the Government did not accede to the request was deferred. Many would remember the announcemetn of the first price fixtures under the Dairy Marketing Act, said Mr. Harbutt. Even then, it was accepted with apprehension. . The feeling current then, as today, was that the price was fixed at the beginning of the season, and the costs of manufacture were added after the price fixation, and in a great many instances were made retrospective. This had been the procedure since the guaranteed price had been in existence. The Minister, in asking primary producers to accept last year’s prices, was not acting up to the promises and context of his own Act. “Farmers must have a iairer share of the distribution of their efforts, and must have their costs reduced,” he said. "Wages cannot rise for ever, nor can the guaranteed price. “We as producers are entitled to a fair return for our eft’ ol ’!' s. Labour also Is entitled, to a fair reward at all times. Business, too, is entitled to its fanreturn. But if business does not get its return, up go the prices; if labour, does not get its share, it goes on strike — downs tools. . ‘‘Since the farmer cannot regulate his prices, but must accept an arbitrary price, which does not cover his needs, why should not he strike? He cannot, for obvious reasons, but one thing he can do, and that is, toy passive resistance to taxation, show his protest. I say the time is ripe for this to be seriously considered by the conference. “As you know, action is required at ■times in a nation’s existence. We know well enough the amount of money that has to be raised today, and we know that interest will have to be paid. Your costs are going up, and the life-blood of our nation is going to be taxed away. Ours is the section of the community that will have to bear the burden. “I have suggested passive resistance to the payment of taxation. It is the only remedy you have got; but if you undertake it, you must be sure you are coming out all right.” Mr. Harbutt suggested that should the farmers’ position be further jeopardized, either financially or by added costs, a Dominion meeting of primary producers in Wellington should be convened by the Farmers’ Union, New Zealand Dairy Board and National Dairy Federation, to decide what action should be taken.

Everyone would agree that the guaranteed price was only a Court of Arbitration agreement as far as the farmer was concerned, said Mr. Campbell Smith, seconding the motion. If it was a Court of Arbitration award it was the only one in the world where a man had to work seven days a week. It was also the only award which stipulated that a man must be efficient before he would be paid. An award to come shortly before the Court of Arbitration would, if it went through, greatly increase the burden on the industry, said Mr. Ferguson, Maungaturoto. Any price paid for the farmers’ produce must be such as would repay him for the costs of production, and also reward him for his labours. If this were not done, the Minister of Marketing would be placing a special tax on the primary producer. It was suggested that the increase in costs was not able to be computed accurately, but the increase in freight charges was an ascertainable increase in costs to the industry, and many other costs were equally ascertainable. As a result of farmers not receiving equal recognition to other branches of the community doing equal service, much land would go out of production.