Basis Set For Guaranteed Price

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 153, 1 July 1939, Page 6

Basis Set For Guaranteed Price

Unanimous Decision Of N.D.A. Conference

POLICY UNCHANGED Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, June 30. A unanimous decision to urge that the recommendations of the 1938-39 Advisory Committee should be accepted as the basis of the guaranteed price for the 1939-40 season was made by the National Dairy Conference to-day. Immediate representations on the subject are to be made to the Government. The motion carried was: That this conference delegates to the representative committee set up last year, consisting of representatives of the National Dairy Conference, the South Island Dairy Association, the Farmers’ Union and the Dairy Board, the responsibility of placing before the Government, without delay, the urgent necessity of establishing the recommendations of the 193839 Advisory Committee as the basis of the guaranteed price for the 1939-40 season, and that the committee be requested to report to the industry the result of its conference with the Government and that this conference agrees to support any recommendations that committee might make. In the course of the discussion, Mr. A. J. Sinclair (Te Awainutu) said: “We are fully aware of the financial implications involved by our just demand, but it is beside the point to say that the country cannot afford it. There are many things which this country cannot afford to do, but we see no indication on the part of organised labour to recognise this fact. Neither do we see any indication on the part of the Government to recognise it. We are living in a fool’s paradise. We cannot go on as we are doing. All that the dairyfarmer asks is that if he is compelled to make sacrifices other sections of the community should be called upon to make comparable sacrifices.” Increased costs, Mr. Sinclair said, were nullifying the benefit of increased wages. The dairy-farmer refused to be singled out as the scapegoat of organised labour, and the time would soon come when he would have no alternative but to consider “appropriate action.” The problem of declining production was discussed.

Mr. D. G. Begley (Heretaunga) moved that the serious decline in the production of dairy-farm produce must be arrested, and that the matter be referred to the committee appointed to consider the question of the guaranteed price, with the addition of a representative of the Pig Marketing Association. Ho said that in actual fact there were 70,000 fewer cows being milked to-day. The labour problem was acute. It was difficult even for farmers to keep their own sons on the farms. He suggested that it was possible to evolve a plan under which young men would be attracted to rural industries. Farming should be regarded as a skilled trade, and the farmer should strive to improve the type of worker engaged.