NOT COMMITTED.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 194, 18 July 1939, Page 7

NOT COMMITTED.

FARMERS AND POLITICS. POLICY OF UNION. Per Press Association CHRISTCHURCH, July 17. “It should be understood that the resolution adopted at the annual conference and reported to-day does not commit the Farmers’ Union to the formation of a political party,” said the Dominion president of the union, Mr W. W. Mulholland, when he was asked to explain further the report from Wellington. “It must not he taken that the union has decided to form a political party,” Air Mulholland said. “There is nothing definite yet, and there will not be till the Dominion executive at its next meeting considers the resolution adopted at the conference. “The resolution was not an operative one, but one creating proposals for investigation and decision. All aspects of the questions involved must ho gone into. This may he done when the executive meets in the third week of August.” Explaining the reference to the sheep-farming commission, Mr Mulholland said that the conference expected the Government t.o take some action. If it failed to do so, farmers would regard it as a serious situation, which might require immediate action.

The resolution referred to was: “That the Dominion executive be instructed to draw up a programme of action—either economic or political—to be placed before a special Dominion conference to be called immediately it deems advisable, having special consideration to the fixing of the guaranteed price or tho Government’s expressed intention in respect to the findings of the Sheep-Farming Commission. This conference is of the opinion that ultimately political action through the medium of a rural party is the effectual means of securing economic justice for tho farmer and tho community in general. Therefore, the Dominion executive is instructed to examine the question from ail angles with a view to the adoption by next annual, conference, or sooner, if necessary, of concrete proposals to give effect thereto.”