The Evening star WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5, 1929. FARMERS AND FREETRADE.

Evening Star, Issue 20193, 5 June 1929, Page 8

The Evening star WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5, 1929. FARMERS AND FREETRADE.

R.k.ckntlv at Masterton Air W.; J. Poison, dominion -president of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union, revived the issue between Frectrade and Protection, between primary and secondary industries. Up to a certain extent his example has been followed by Mr I). M. Reid in delivering the presidential address at the Farmers’ Union meeting here yesterday. In the latter ease a pleasing omission was tho tone of disparagement of New Zealand manufacturing industries which Air Poison adopted. Though it may be true, as Air Poison claims, that this country derives 95 per cent, of its exports from tho land, it is also true that local manufacture has gone some little way towards making this community selfcontained. An annual production of goods -worth £83,000,000, involving the circulation of £17,000,000’ a year among about 80,000 wage-earners, enables imports to be kept down to a level which leaves a favourable trade balance and makes available money to develop the country, bring more land into production, and pay the interest on the capital rJready expended in that direction. This is altogether apart from the purchasing power in I respect of primary products which 1 local manufacturing industries add to the homo market. A few months ago there was being cultivated among our primary and secondary industrialists a realisation of tho community of interest which greatly outweighs the incidental flashings bound to occur in so highly organised and complex a social and economic sj-stem as ours. It is to bo regretted that occasionally there is an attempt to revive old antagonisms, prejudices, and •misconceptions. Quo of tho two remits on Tariff Reform brought before yesterday’s meeting of the Otago branch of tho Farmers’ Union erred in tho direction mentioned. It read; “That this conference considers that high protective tariffs are a cause of high costs of farm production, and are therefore a serious menace to the welfare of this country.’’ It might be argued that this docs not necessarily imply any antagonism towards our secondary industries. since these latter should bo able to flourish - without protection. But experience has shown that many of them cannot,-and Air Waite, M.R., was prompt to point out that tho al(ii illation in the remit was highly controversial and impolitic. Fortunately this view prevailed, the remit was withdrawn, and the conference cantented itself with, the advocacy of a Royal Commission on Tariff Reform. Ai a, matter of fact, it is debatable whether New Zealand Customs duties in general constitute a high protective tariff. It is usually regarded as a revenue tariff, which defeats its own purpose if tho schedules are unduly high. It is even argued that, on balance, the farmer gains more than lie loses because of- it. It is difficult to ascertain precisely to what extent Customs duties have pushed up farmers’ costs of .production; but it is sale to say that these have been influenced far more by the high price of land and the high price of money, and in some eases by nnprogressive or conservative methods which Government instructors' find it takes time to break down. Even to-day it is rare for farmers to eet in conference without some of their own number deploring the tenacity with which the scrub bull and the scrub ram persist on many liold,'ings. ■ It is quite possible that some farmers blame tho New Zealand Customs tariff for retaliatory action by other countries in closing their doors to our primary products. -The case of Australia lies nearest at hand. If there were no tariff barriers that country would occasionally offer a. wide and convenient market lor New Zealand butter and potatoes, for example. The virtual exclusion of potatoes is a sore point with our growers. But the New Zealand farmer, or at least the South Island farmer, will not hear of the removal of the duty on wheat and flour. Yesterday’s * conference passed a. resolution for the retention of the psesent sliding scale tariff on wheat and flour as being in the interests of both producer and consumer. How the consumer benefits is not apparent. The poultry industry’ is a big consumer of wheat, and it has recently been representing very forcibly to the Government that it is-being heavily penalised through tho operation of the duties. If a Royal Commission or a Tariff Board is set up this matter will have to jie investigated along with others. The high cost of production of wheat in New Zealand is not due to high duties on farmers’, requirements, but primarily to the adherence to a far less economical, method of harvesting than is adopted in the world’s great

wheat-growing countries. Hero the crop is reaped, stocked, stacked, and finally threshed when it has properly ripened in the stack. Elsewhere a combined harvester “heads” and threshes the wheat in the one operation. The adoption of this method has been urged in New Zealand,’ but the reply is that climatic conditions will not allow of it; that the nor’westers on the Canterbury Plains would shake the berry out of the head if the wheat were allowed to stand until ripe enough for the combined harvester. It may bo so, but we have not

yet noticed instances of this theory being put' to ( actual test. Mr Reid stated yesterday that, if protection were removed generally, or even materially reduced, he felt sure the wheat growers would be the first to agree to the removal of protection from their product. In that case the wheat-growing industry would disappear altogether. It would bo accompanied out by many manufacturing industries, and the present total of unemployment would bo only a fraction of that which would ensue.