DISSATISFIED FARMERS

Evening Star, Issue 25849, 20 July 1946, Page 8

DISSATISFIED FARMERS

NEW PRICE SGHEDULE RESENTED REQUEST FOR REVISION (N.Z.P.A Special. Correspondent.) (Rec. 9.30 a.m.) LONDON, July 19. A protest confronting the British Government comes from farmers demanding the reopening of Agricultural price commodity discussions and pror testing against the new farm price schedule which was recently announced by the Government. The revised prices to be paid'to farmers will cost the Exchequer £11,000.000 for the balance of the present financial year, and £15,000,000 next year, but the National Farmers' Union, which is leading the protest, contends that these increases are insufficient to meet "the increased costs of production, the chief of which i 6 the recent increase in wages of agricultural labourers. ' The union contends that prices for agricultural products must be raised by at least £25,000,000 this year in order to maintain the level of profit agreed upon between the Government and farmers' representatives when the present schedule was fixed hist February. At a special meeting this week the union executive decided formally to request the Government to reopen price talks. "If this request is refused," says a statement issued by union headquarters, " it will be necessary to take further steps to secure redress." The president of the union, Mr James Turner, stated that the new price scale had provoked the stormiest meeting in the history of the union, and that its members were in fighting mood. If the Government did not reopen the price review the confidence of the farmers would be seriously undermined. While this statement was being issued, the Minister of Agriculture, Mr Tom Williams, was appealing id' farmers to accept the new scale and asking that both farmers and farmworkers do their best to increase British food production, particularly wheat. The Scottish and Ulster Farmers' Unions have joined the English Farmers' Union in its request to the Government for reopening a special review of farm prices. The request is now on a United Kingdom basis.