A HAIR OF THE DOG

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 60, 12 March 1927, Page 8

A HAIR OF THE DOG

An increasing protectionist spirit among farmers, and particularly among Australian farmers, is one of tho growing political problems of the flay. Tho Australian farmer seems to be tired of his losing fight against high protection of urban industries—tired of complaining that he has to bear the burden of the higher cost of production induced .by tho Customs tariff. Instead of relying on tho broken reed of free-trade principle, the Australian fanner—or a considerable section of his calling is now crying out increasingly for a hair of the dog that bit him. As a result he has received from the politicians not one hair but several, including the Paterson export bonus on butter; and his appetite has been so whetted that ho clamours for exclusive duties or absolute embargoes on the butter, potatoes, and pig products imported from his brother farmer in New Zealand^ Though the period of notice provided for in the New Zealand-Australian commercial agreement prevents immediate hostilities, the Customs guns on each side of the Tasman Sea are being oiled, and New Zealand's flour-dumping duty

quickly followed Australia's potato embargo. At this stage- the New Zealand Farmers' Union intervenes with the interesting suggestion that "a conference of farmers from both Australia and New Zealand will soon have to be convened to help the Customs Departments of both countries to arrive at a satisfactory solution of a very difficult problem." Will a conference of farmers restore the free-trade principles from whicli all parties have wandered? Or will it merely result in the Australian farmer persuading the New Zealand farmer to start a Paterson bonus system of his own?