MR. NASH TAKEN TO TASK.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 10 September 1937, Page 5

MR. NASH TAKEN TO TASK.

TREATMENT OF FARMER,

MR, POLSON MAKES COMPARISONS

(By Telegraph—Press Association ) WELLINGTON, This Day,

Commenting on Hon. Walter Nash’s statement, Mr. W. J. Poison, M.P., said: “Mr. Nash has left no doubt in anyone’s mind to-day regarding the policy of the Government in respect of the dairy farmer. It is an immediate policy of socialism, and £5 10s per week is to be the value of the efficient farmer’s reward, from which he must deduct 3 - 0 s for his house- and the farm produce consumed by himself and his family. The farmer is a skilled worker, employing capital in addition to his skill and experience. Mr. Nash’s statement to-day provides nothing for his capital, management or the hours he works. He is to receive what the worker in industry gets, no more and no less.

i “Mr. Nash justifies the guaranteed price by the publication of some figures, i wdiich do not agree with either the figures carefully compiled and published by the Farmers’ Union, or the New Zealand Co-operative Dairy Company, Ltd.,” continued Mr. Poison. “On what are these figures based? One is entitled to ask not for extracts from a report, which may be a majority or a minority report, but for the publication of the whole report, or reports, without excision. If the ordinary skilled worker is to receive 2s 9d per hour and the watersider 2s Bd, with no interest in the results of their labour, the farmer working sometimes double the hours, under all weather conditions, vrithout many of the amenities of town life, and risking the gamble of the seasons as well as his capital, is entitled to a better deal. What has become of the promise to measure the farmer’s work on the same yardstick as other sections of the community?

“The worst feature of. the new arrangement,” Mr. Poison proceeded, “Is that many struggling farmers will give up hope. Why submit to such conditions when the watersider, with no responsibilities, can earn a similar reward? Small farmers constitute the majority of those engaged in the industry, but the large farmers who employ labour to any extent, will be even more seriously affected by the rising tide of costs, which is only beginning.”