"ASKED TO STAY PUT"

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 2, 3 July 1939, Page 8

"ASKED TO STAY PUT"

The attitude of the National Dairy Conference on the guaranteed price question is logical. The dairy industry has been asked by the Government to "stay put"—-to assist in stabilising prices and costs by accepting for the coming season the price fixed last year. The Government justifies this request by saying it has made a similar request to labour organisations. The National Dairy Conference declines to go further than the March conference of the Dairy Board which offered to ignore subsequent increased costs if given the price recommended by the 1938-39 Advisory Committee. It does this on the ground that there is no sign of the labour organisations acceding to the Government's request for stability, nor any indication that the Government proposes to make its request for stability a command to the unions. The National Dairy Conference refusal is accompanied by a candid recognition of the consequences.

We are fully aware of the financial implications involved by our just demand, said Mr. A. J. Sinclair, but it is beside the point to say that the country cannot afford it. There are many things which this country cannot afford to do, but we see no indication on the part of organised labour 10 recognise this fact; neither do we see any indication on the part of the Government to recognise it; we are living in a fool's paradise; we cannot go on as we are doing, and all the dairy farmer asks is that, if he is compelled to make sacrifices, other

sections of the community should be called upon to make comparable sacrifices.

This is logical, but not helpful to a Government which is obstinately declining to halt its cost-raising policy or face the facts with which that policy has confronted the country. Stability is highly desirable, if it can be achieved; but to hold the benefits that have been given there must be greater and more efficient production. There is no sign of this being forthcoming, and all the time the pressure for more benefits is continuing. Last year the Government whittled down the guaranteed price recommended by an expert committee. This year it destroyed or greatly reduced the business of importers and the living of persons dependent upon them. Now it is asking the dairy farmers for a further sacrifice to the cause of stability. And while thus lowering the living standards of farmers and importers (for that is the effect) it proclaims emphatically that it will not permit any reduction in workers' living standards. Neither farmers nor importers can compel'the Government to take just and equal action, but the dairy farmers are refusing "to be singled out as the scapegoat." Will the Government recognise the force of this logic and realise that, if costs are to be stabilised, it must make equality of sacrifice something more than a polite request?