FARMERS’ BONUSES

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 September 1927, Page 11

FARMERS’ BONUSES

COUNTRY LEADER’S HINT. The Australian attempt to appease the anti-protection spirit among farmers, by making the farmers a party to another form of protection (bonuses on- export surpluses), has interest for New Zealand. Dr Page, Federal Treasurer and Leader of the Country Party section of the Bruce-Page Government, recently made the farmers some half-promises that are regarded in Australia as going rather far, even after making allowance for the amiability permitted to a Country Party leader at a farmers’ picnic. Dr Page, speaking at a picnic of farmers’ and sellers’ associations at Clifton Gardens, Sydney, referred to the higher wages and costs that the farmer had to pay as a result of protection of secondary industries, and said that no one could deny the justice of the claim of the producers of raw materials, and especially of those with an export surplus, that the price of their goods consumed in Australia should rise in proportion to the general rise in the cost of living and of production.

At a later stage Dr Page contended that want of co-operation in the past had prevented their lifting off the local market the weight of the surplus that had to be sold overseas, continued Dr Page. In two outstanding cases — dried fruits and butter—the organisation. of the producers was enabling them to do that. (It is in the butter industry that the Patterson Plan operates). Proper co-operative organisation of industries, of which the products were extensively consumed in Australia, but which still has a large surplus for export, could greatly improve the farmers’ position. The Federal Ministry was willing to provide legislative machinery for such organisation by the farmers if the majority of them desired it. All the Ministry would do, however, was to provide legislative and financial machinery. The organisation must be carried out by the farmers themselves. If they organised, they could produce for themselves results similar to those which organised labour had obtained or those which the organised manufacturers had obtained in securing an Australian price for theii’ efforts. Concerning the Paterson Plan, which makes a levy on all Australianmade butter so as to provide an export bonus on Australia’s exported butter, the financial writer of the “Argus” says that this burden falls on the Australian consumer. “As matters stand in Australia to-day "the dairy farmer is collecting annually a levy on butter aggregating £2,000,000 a year. This is paid by consumers who are restive about it. What will be their feelings if they find that, acting upon the advice of the Federal Treasurer, the Cabinet has agreed to legislation which will enable wheat growers collectively to levy 6d or Is a bushel upon all wheat used in Australia? Tremendous outcry would occur, and who could deny its justification, for bread is th© staff of life. Would not the wiser course be for the man on the land to avoid joining any ‘vicious circle’ ? Once in the circle no individual segment by its own act can confer upon itself a particular benefit. The advice of Dr Page therefore is merely that of one who offers no real advantage. If he believes that to place the community upon a real wage basis the tariff has to be made reasonable, why suggest round-about methods which in the end will avail nothing, and while operating will add to the burdens of all? The way for Dr Page to escape from his dilemma is by taking the short cut open to him and all other country representatives of engaging in the task of tariff reform, as asked by so many of their constituents.”

An “Argus” editorial takes the line that farmers’ export bonuses are merely a policy of reprisal against manufacturers’ high protection, and that you cannot improve a fiscal poison by doubling the dose. “In. the past certain sections of the producers —notably, butter producers—have been able to obtain more than the world’s parity within Australia by concerted action. Though economically unsound and ethically indefensible this action was only in the nature of a reprisal for the many wrongs they had suffered because of the fiscal policy of the country; but sectional reprisals and deliberate Ministerial policy are two different matters. . . It should be obvious (and probably is) to Dr Page that where all are in a vicious circle in which prices and the rewards of industry hre chasing each other, no one’s lot can be relatively better. The proper remedy for unsound economics is certainly not more unsound economics.”