FARMERS UNEASY

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 142, 17 June 1937, Page 10

FARMERS UNEASY

EISING COSTS

GUARANTEED PRICE

NO GAIN DERIVED

There is very considerable uneasiness among farmers about increasing costs, and it is feared that

the position may get out of hand

according to a statement made to a "Post" reporter today by Mr. W. W. Mulholland, of Darfield, Canterbury, Dominion president of the

New Zealand Farmers' Union,

This is the position as Mr. Mulholland sees it after having attended during the past four weeks provincial farmers' union meetings . in various parts of the North Island and the South Island. Mr. MuJholland indicated also that there was a general feeling that the guaranteed price does not represent, under the circumstances, any gain to the farmer. While, so far as the sheep industry was concerned, prices this year made it possible to meet increases in costs, said Mr. Mulholland, it was recognised that prices were high, and must inevitably fall again, but the fact that costs in the past had shown a very great reluctance to fall in sympathy with the fall in prices was making farmers very uneasy about the continued increase in costs. A number of recent farmers' union conferences had expressed themselves as determined to resist further increases to the utmost as being definitely dangerous to the economic stability of the Dominion.

There was a general feeling that the guaranteed price did not represent any gain to the farmer in view of the rising costs, and generally the hope was expressed in respect q£ the price for the coming season that adequate consideration would be given to the very substantial increases in costs of production, and that it would not be overlooked that costs of production were still rising rapidly.