FARMERS' PROBLEMS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 74, 24 September 1938, Page 19

FARMERS' PROBLEMS

INCREASED COSTS

CANNOT BE PASSED ON

(By Telegraph—Press Association.)

AUCKLAND, September 23

"With the war in the East, the unsettled state of Europe, and the general disarrangement of trade channels, it would be a bold man who would attempt to forecast what is likely to j happen to overseas prices," said Mr. H. E. Worsp, chairman of directors of the Auckland Farmers' Freezing Company, Limited, at the annual meeting. "Although we have no war in New Zealand, we have our own internal troubles, and two of these that affect the farming community very seriously are the continued rise in costs and the scarcity of farm labour. "Although the increased costs of other producers and distributors are passed, on to him, the primary producer selling in an unsheltered market is unable to pass on his increased costs," added Mr. Worsp. "The margin which overseas prices allow him on his produce cannot be made stable by any action he is able to take. If advancing costs or falling prices wipe out this margin, he works at a loss, and that is the prospect that is being made disagreeably real by the increase of taxation, heavier transport costs, dearer imports, and the impossibility of procuring competent farm labour, even at high wages. "If the primary producer is to be handicapped by continually increasing costs and insufficient labour, he cannot maintain his production or compete at a price to meet the world's markets. "Unles there is a rise in prices overseas, which at the moment does not seem likely, then the logical result must be that all but the most fertile land will go out of production, and the national income will be so depleted that, of necessity, the standard of living in New Zealand will be considerably lowered."

m , ', ~ ... . „ „,,_,. The school authorities of an English county school enforce * trC^oll^n7 Star: m^l let out in the streets. The idea is to give the children time in the school yards to let off surplus energy before being exposed to the traffic perils of the streets. i