GUARANTEED PRICE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 25, 29 July 1939, Page 10

GUARANTEED PRICE

UNION'S ATTITUDE

INDUSTRY NOT LET DOWN

"A MISTAKEN IDEA"

(Special to the "Evening Post") PALMERSTON N.. This Day. ' An emphatic denial that the Farmers' Union had let the dairying industry down during the discussion of the guaranteed price for dairy produce at the recent conference was made by the provincial president, Mr. D. G. Gordon, at Feilding yesterday. Members of the union explained that many held the mistaken view that the union, at .tho recent conference, and the Domin|ion president of the union, Mr. W. W. Mulholland, had condemned the guaranteed'price. The opinion that the views expressed by Mr. Mulholland had been misconstrued was expressed by Mr. Gordon. The conference, he said, had not attacked the principle of the guaranteed price for dairy produce, nor had the Dominion president said anything that could be construed as an attack on the principle. The conference had protested against the arbitrary alterations by the Minister of Marketing (the Hon. W. Nash) in the standards and prices recommended py the Government's Advisory Committee. That was the complaint of the dairy farmers and one which the conference endorsed. The conference disagreed, said Mr.Gordon, with the Minister's suggestion that the prices fixed for the current season should be continued for the 1939-40 season. The whole point about th discussion was that the conference considered that the Government had failed to live up to its promises under the Primary Products Marketing Act and had ignored the report of the Guaranteed Prices Advisory Committee of 1938 in fixing the price for the 1938-39 season. DISTORTION OF FACTS. The committee, it would be recalled, submitted a unanimous report, but its recommendations, based on its examination of the position of dairy farmers and consideration of rising costs, were ignored by the Minister of Marketing, who fixed his own price. The union's complaint was against the procedure. That was clear and definite, and it was unfortunate that the references in the House by the Prime Minister had led to some distortion of the true facts with the result that dairy farmers felt that the Farmers' Union had let them down. The union was definitely out to support the dairy farmer and to protect him. Continuing, Mr. Gordon said that the conference, in order to co-operate with the Government and in conformity with the union's policy of reduction of costs, had agreed to support the offer made by the Dairy Board's Dominion conference to forgo any increases in costs and to accept for the 1939-40 season the standards and prices recommended by the 1938 Advisory Committee. In reference to the Prime Minister's statement that he would have to give serious consideration to ending the guaranteed price scheme, the Dominion president replied that he personally would welcome the return to the industry of the control of marketing, and he expressed the assumption that if the Government did decide to hand back control of the scheme to the industry it would also give the industry facilities for credit, mass, marketing, etc. to carry on a similar scheme. Mr. Mulholland also said that if Mr. Savage decided to go ahead with the proposal to end the scheme ne should call a conference of representatives of the industry in order that the position might be thoroughly discussed. It would be seen, suggested Mr. Gordon, that Mr. Mulholland made no attack on the guaranteed price scheme and his statement was in the direction of suggesting that if the Government decided to make any alteration in the scheme, a conference of all interested | parties should be called as soon as possible.