BIG YEAR FOR FARMERS

Evening Star, Issue 22618, 9 April 1937, Page 8

BIG YEAR FOR FARMERS

*' TEMPORARY AHD UNHEALTHY " BffOM UNCONVINCING 11 SPECTRE OF SOCIALISM " QUALIFIED APPROVAL OF LABOUR POLICY [Per United Press Association.] HAMILTON, April 9. Declaring the year to be a momentous one for New Zealand farmers, the president of the Waikato Sub-provincial Farmers’ Union (Mr S. N. Ziman) stated at the annual meeting to-day that the prodigious armaments programme had resulted in a wave of prosperity spreading over the country through a greater demand for and increased price of our products for Britain. The beneficial effect on the Dominion’s primary producers must from its very nature be both temporary and unhealthy. The phenomenally high price of wool was by no means an unmixed blessing, even if the appalling spending for war purposes must result in another intense and prolonged depression. , , , . “ The Government has .proceeded to put into effect much of its advertised programme, and the farming community has been profoundly affected, ’ said Mr Ziman. “In view of the sufferings of all classes of the community during the depression, the Farmers’ Union has been prepared to view with a great deal of sympathy the policy of attacking from a new angle the problems of the Dominion. It is . not terrified by the spectre of Socialism which has been raised to oppose every reform for halt a century, and is not prepared to. try to stampede its members with this sort assumption by the Government of power over and responsibility for the financial and monetary policy of the Dominion had! the complete approval of the executive, though, of course, it was watching with the greatest interest to see how this power was used. Apart from legislation dealing directly with faming, other actions of the Government affected the farmers considerably; in particular, the increased activity of other industries. The general rise in wages in such industries had -resulted in farmers experiencing a shortage of competent labour. They hadl been unable to compete in matters of wages and hours of work with other industries. "Obviously the only remedy was in some way to make the returns to the farmer sufficient to enable him to compete in the labour market.