A FARMERS' ONE BIG UNION

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 27, 1 August 1923, Page 4

A FARMERS' ONE BIG UNION

Mr. W. J. Poison, President of the Farmers' Union, appears fco.be convinced that all the organisations now working in the interests of the farmers should be welded into one big union, the Povjetty Bay Farmers' Union thinks .likewise. It voiced its opinions yesterday on this important subject at the Farmers' Union Conference: It desired id see something like a unity in trinity and trinity/?: in unity effected in the form ofLan association to set iip three beft-ds —a meat board, a wool board, and a dairy board • one association^ but three boards j three boards, but one association. Finance was to be obtained for the association by a levy not to exceed one penny in the £l oil the exportable value of all produce' Sent out into the markets of the Avorld for realisation. Very wisely, we think, the conference decided that the remit should be referred back to the Poverty Bay Union, and. to all other union's for further arid fuller consideration. On the surface, huge combinations in trade and services make a fair show of effecting greater economy aud efficiency than when operating as units. But experience has shown that the savings made by such Organisations, where successful, are not ihvariably shared with those whom they serve or those with whom they trade. The benefits are usually coiifihed to those in the combination^ or one big union, whatever it is. The Usiuil result of the formation and operation of oiie big union is the calling into existence of another, and opposing, big union. Thus the co-operative spirit is not only lost sight of; but cooperation itself is killed. A farmers' one big union is not iriipossible, : not improbable; but it would surely be met by other one big unionsj aiid a sort of League of Nations might have to be formed to prevent a particularly destructive form of warfare —bad for victors arid vanquished alike.