WILL GIVE UP HOPE

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 62, 10 September 1937, Page 11

WILL GIVE UP HOPE

THE SMALL FARMER

MR. POLSON'S COMMENT

The view that one result of the new arrangement regarding guaranteed prices would be that the struggling farmer would give up hope and that the large farmer would be seriously affected by the rising tide of costs was expressed by Mr. W. J. Poison, M.P. for Stratford, today, when commenting on Mr. Nash's statement.

"Mr. Nash has left no doubt in anyone's mind today regarding the policy of the Government in respect of the dairy farmer," said Mr. Poison. "It is an immediate policy of Socialism. Five pounds ten shillings a week is to be the value of the efficient farmer's reward, from which he must deduct 30s for his house and the farm produce consumed by himself and his family. The farmer is a skilled worker employing capital in addition to his Skill and experience. Mr. Nash's statement today provides nothing for his capital, his management, or the hours he works. He is to receive what the worker in industry gets—'no more, no less.'

"Mr. Nash justifies the guaranteed price by the publication of some figures which do not agree with either the figures carefully compiled and 'published by the New Zealand Farmers' Union or the New Zealand Co-opera-tive Dairy Company', Ltd. On what are these figures based? One is entitled to ask not for extracts from a report which may be a majority or minority report, but for the publication of the whole report or reports without excision.

"If the ordinary skilled worker is to receive 2s Dd per hour and the watersider 2s 8d with no interest in the results of their labour, the farmer, working sometimes double the hours, under all weather conditions, without many of the amenities of town life, risking the gamble of the seasons as well as his capital, is entitled to a better deal. 'What has become of the promise to measure the farmer's work on the same yardstick as other sections of the community?

"The worst feature of the new arrangement is that ■ many struggling farmers will give up hope. Why. submit to such conditions when the watersider, with no responsibilities, can earn a similar reward? The small farmers constitute the majority of those engaged in the industry, but the large farmers who employ labour to any extent will be even more seriously affected by the rising tide of costs only beginning."