FARM COSTS AND EXPORT PRICES.

Evening Star, Issue 21055, 18 March 1932, Page 14

FARM COSTS AND EXPORT PRICES.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Please favour me with a few lines to correct a most extraordinary and widespread error due to misuse of certain figures issued by the Government Statistician. Taking 1928 as a base, farm costs are given as having decreased 9.3 per cent, and export prices 42.5 per cent. Far and wide tho idea has caught hold that these two percentages have a relationship. That is not so There are many sots of costs in the total values of exports besides farming costs. Alany of these costs, freight, killing, freezing, shipping, which have hardly come down, amounted to nearly all the cost of certain farm products in 1928, and it is quite wrong to suppose the reduction of farm returns as 42.5 per cent.— that is, the reduction over the whole value of exports. In altogether too raanv cases, and probably over the whole average of farming, the reduction of 42.5 per cent, in completely wipes out farm profits. There may still be profits in dairying, but the graziers’ losses probably more than eliminate dairying profits. Another error is to take imports—the real return which New Zealand receives for exports—at New Zealand prices, for these arc built up of actual costs, charges, and duties, the latter having notoriously increased. New Zealand receives imports much cheaper than tho statistical indexes indicate, in comparison with what was paid in earlier years. As statistical tables which convey the above incorrect ideas are quoted in the newspapers almost every day, and were used by the Economy Commission, I trust you consider this intrusion on your space as justifiable.— I am, etc., A. E. Robinson. Auckland, Alarch 15.