POLITICAL ACTION

Grey River Argus, 5 June 1943, Page 4

POLITICAL ACTION

BY FAMRERS’ UNION '

May Join National Party

P.A. INVERCARGILL, June 4. A hint of possible political action, by affiliation with the National Party, was given by the Dominion President of the Farmers’ Union, Mr W. W. Mulholland, in an address to the Southland Provincial Conference of the Union to-day. He said that, during the last year, the Government had dealt unsympathetically with a number of farmers’ problems. Nothing had done more to unsettle farmers than the tour of the Minister of Agriculture to defend the Government’s actions about the increase of 15 per cent, in wool prices granted by the British Government. The Minister had trumpted it from a dozen platforms that the wool growers were now receiving 62 per cent, above the pre-war prices for their wool. A little investigation did not hear out the Minister’s assertions. The Minister’s tour had, perhaps, been designed less to justify past action than to pave the way for future actions.

As chairman of the Farmers’ Federation, Mr Mulholland said, he had received a communication which had caused him much concern, because it could be taken to mean that the future price of wool would be less than what it was on December 15 last. He had asked the Minister for an explanation. Mr Mulholland also said that the Dominion Executive had recently passed a resolution expressing “no confidence” in the Government as one which offered any hope of .an economic future for the farming community. It had set up a committee to prepare # policy acceptable to the farming community, and to approach political parties, and particularly the National Party, which might be prepared to support that policy. Several meetings with the National Party had been held, he said, and that Party’s agricultural policy approached very closely to that of the Farmers’ Union. The delegates, at the next annual conference, would probabty be faced with making a most momentuoug decision for the future of the farming community.

NORTH CANTERBURY FARMERS’ UNION.

CHRISTCHURCH, June 4. A reduction in handling charges and elimination of alleged anomalies to the distribution of produce, was urged at the annual Provincial Conference of the North Canterbury District of New Zealand Farmers’ Union, which was held to-day at Christchurch. A resolution " was adopted which stated that this action was taken to make certain farm produce available in sufficient quantities and at reasonable prices, to the consumers of the Dominion. The majority of the resolutions adopted by conference dealt with problems of marketing and war production, and more particularly with the prices for meat, wool and wheat.