THE GUARANTEED PRICE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 195, 19 July 1939, Page 8

THE GUARANTEED PRICE.

The Premier's recent statement to the House of .Representatives that the Government cannot disregard the opinions expressed against the guaranteed prices inside and outside Parliament, and if the dairy farmers wished to revert to the former system it might be the duty of the Government to devise ways and means oi meeting them, has intrigued the industry. Mr Savage has further explained that his "mam object is to learn from the dairy farmers themselves whether they want to scrap the Government's marketing and guaranteed price policy." But he shrewdly does not go far enough, for farmers' costs have risen as the result of Government legislation to a point that places producers on the horns of a dilemma. This the Government knows full well. The position has been" clearly stated by. the chairman of the Dairy Board. The industry, he. says, had never asked for the scheme, nor had it had the opportunity to vote independently on it, and that section which had originally favoured it had since found that costs had soared above the benefits. When the Government made this question one of leading importance in its policy fjirmeis were in many cases attracted by the proposition, but they quickly learned that increased benefits were not entirely theirs—-they must be shared because of rising costs. In other words they were not, after all, to receive the living standard comparable with that of other sections of the community as promised by the Government. Last season the Government overrode the recommendations of the advisory committee the Minister appointed to guide him in deciding the new prices, and before he left for London the Minister for Marketing asked the dairy-farmers, as a, means of effecting stability, to accept the current prices for their produce in the 1939-40 season. The industry has not been impressed and the Government has yet to discharge its responsibility in the matter of costs. To ask the dairy-farmers now to state their voice bluntly on the question would not be taking into consideration the repercussions of n policy the industry did not ask for, and which are the chief cause of concern to-day.