FARMING COSTS

Matamata Record, Volume XIX, Issue 1788, 3 December 1936, Page 5

FARMING COSTS

■l ' SAVINGS TO THE INDUSTRY Total of £252,000 The cost of living was not as high to-day as it was five or six years ago, said Mr. J. G. Barclay, M.P., during his address in the Matamata Tdwn Hall. Anyone could prove that by referring to the sales catalogues of the period, the speaker added. At present the Government had no statistics to show what the cost of producing butter was, but it was hoped to have these figures next year. When these were known a compensating price would be paid to the farmer. By using the Reserve Bank the Government was saving the farming industry £121,000 in interest a year*, reckoning the seven weeks’ journey to England, and £90,000 in commission and £41,000 on the Dairy Board levy. This was a total of £252,000, so that this was a direct saving to the industry at a time when it was said that all farming costs were going up. Manure had not risen in price; on the other hand it would shortly be reduced. Cement had not gone up, and railway freights were the same. During the last eight years the total cost of manufacturing from the farm to the factory had dropped from 2.7 to 1.92. This year it would be about 2.3 d, a halfpenny less than it had been. Superphosphate prices and interest were the two biggest farming costs in Waikato, and they had not risen, and the. farmer could still get sharemilkers on a one-third basis. The speaker knew there was an acute farm labour problem and that a change could not be made overnight. However, the difficulties should not be exaggerated, as problems could not be solved that way. Replying to a statement later in the meeting that the Labour Party was driving women and children into the milking sheds, Mr. Barclay met with considerable opposition from a section of his audience. The speaker said that he would guarantee his interrupter a sharemilker next year if the interrupter would guarantee the shai’emilker decent conditions. The sharemilker would get and the farmer 9d, whereas a farmer a year or two back got 9d and had to do the work himself.' The .speaker knew that some farm workers were of a poor standard, but as a farmer he also knew that some fanners were not of any higher standard. There were always two sides to a question.