The Compensated Price

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 168, 17 July 1937, Page 4

The Compensated Price

Possibly the most important of the several important subjects debated by the New Zealand Farmers’ Union conference was the compensated price. After a lengthy debate with several amendments the compensated price plank was adopted. The tone of this debate revealed a situation of deep human interest. The compensated price is fundamentally inflationary. The union is opposed in principle to inflation. Delegates were fully aware of the dilemma in which they were placed and frankly admitted so in their speeches—the pull of loyalty to principle, and the demands of an expedient to meet an existing crisis. The circumstances being as they are, expediency had to triumph. Wholehearted advocates of the measure urged that “the gap” must be closed and that the union need not concern itself as to how it was to be closed. Other members were, however, deeply concerned with this side of the question and rightly so. During the past two years, the demand for a compensated price has grown from comparative insignificance to a powerful influence upon national policy. The “official seal” of the Farmers’ Union has now been set upon it. As to “the gap” which it is to close, no impartial observer can deny that this exists. This is no new ereation, rather a gradual growth of the past quarter-century, lately accelerated by the inflationary policies of the present Government. Adoption of the compensated price plan is an admission that a sound policy of costs reduction is a practical impossibility. The sole alternative thereto is to raise adequately the farming income.