PRIMARY PRODUCE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 35, 10 August 1944, Page 3

PRIMARY PRODUCE

DEMAND FOR FULL VALUE*

P.A. WANGANUI, August 9. A public meeting of more than 200 farmers and primary producers this afternoon voiced a protest at the Government's lack of co-operation with the farming industry in the Dominion with reference to the agreement between the Governments of Great Britain and New Zealand regarding the prices for primary produce lor the next four years. Mr. T. Currie, president of the Provincial Executive of the Farmers' Union, presided, and the speakers included Messrs. R. O. Montgomerie (Farmers' Union), E. J. Kirk (honey producers), Lloyd Hammond (Meat Producers Board)., and W. S. Glenn (Sheepowners* Federation). Resolutions proposed by Mr. D Sutherland and carried unanimously were:—

1. That this meeting of primary producers and business men of the Wanganui district demand in the most emphatic terms that clause 11 of the Finance Act No. 2 be amended so that it will be written into the Act that no moneys may be taken from any pools or funds by the Government without the consent of the primary industries concerned.

2. That the Dairy Board be supported in demanding an extra 2d a pound for butterfat and that, the Dairy Board be asked to look into the question of a retrospective increase being made.

3. That this meeting of primary producers and business men express its complete dissatisfaction with the method adopted by the Government of having lump sums paid by the British Government to the New Zealand Government, and demands that the primary industries be fully credited with the full value of their produce, and affirm the conviction that the Government, by the proposed method is robbing the 'primary industries of their just reward and the full worth of their products, which form practically the only basis for trade negotiations with the United Kingdom.