GUARANTEED PRICES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 112, 13 April 1936, Page 8

GUARANTEED PRICES.

ADMINISTERING THE SCHEME. DEPARTMENTAL CHANGES. (By Telegraph.—Special to Standard.) WELLINGTON, April 11. The next important policy measure of the Government, which will make its appearance about a week after the resumption of Parliament on Thursday, is. the Guaranteed Prices Bill. Although , concerned with; assuring producers of exportable products a minimum return tor their labour, the legislation is regarded as not so much / a fanning question as one of finance, therefore Cabinet has placed it in the hands of Hon. W. Nash (Minister of Finance), and it will be introduced by Governor-General’s message. It has been ascertained that 'the report of the expert committee which was directed to prepare the machinery details of the guaranteed prices scheme was so voluminous that a summary was written for tlio information of the members of the Government not directly concerned in the elaborate details which it was the committee’s duty to evolve. The operation of the scheme, involving as it does the State’s financial interest in all exported dairy products—though they will be marketed through the existing channels of trade—will necessitate the setting up of a new department for the administration of the scheme. The retirement of Dr. C. J. Reakes, Director-General of the Department of Agriculture, may possibly be followed by some reorganisation of the administrative side of this important department so as to include a branch devoted to the administration of the Guaranteed Prices Act. The Dairy Producers’ Board will also play its part in the organisation as the representative of the dairy producers both in New Zealand and at the marketing end, where the High Commissioner’s staff will probably be strengthened to cape with its new responsibility.