Passive Resistance Suggested

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

Passive Resistance Suggested

NON-PAYMENT OF TAXES ONE METHOD Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, June 29. The fixation of the guaranteed price for the coming dairying season at the figure recommended by the Price Advisory Committee for the year was idvocated to-day by the National Dairy Conference in Wellington. A suggestion that unless farmers /ere given a guaranteed price satisactory to them, they should resort to passive resistance” by not paying their axes was made by Mr W. Harbutt, Jambridge, mover of the remit, which nitiated the discussion. The remit was that the conference should endorse the resolution passed at the Dominion Dairy Board Conference, asking that the guaranteed price for 1939-40 be that recommended by the Price Advisory Committee for 1938-39. This remit was carried. Discussion, however, of what action dairy companies should take if the Government did not accede to the request was deferred. Many would remember the announcement of the first price fixtures under the Dairy Marketing Act, said Mr Harbutt. Even then, rt was accepted with apprehension. The feeling current then, as to-day, was that the price was fixed at the beginning of the season, and the costs of manufacture were added after the price fixation, and in a great many instances were made retrospective. This had been the procedure since the guaranteed price had been in existence. The Minister, in asking primary producers to accept last year’s prices, was not acting up to the promises and context of his own Act. “Farmers must have a fairer share of the distribution of their efforts, and must have their costs reduced,” he said. “Wages cannot rise for ever, nor can the guaranteed price. “We as producers are entitled to a fair return for our efforts. Labour also is entitled to a fair reward at all times. Business, too, is entitled to its fair return. But if business does not get its return, up go the prices; if labour does not get its share, it goes on strike—downs tools. “Since the farmer cannot regulate his prices, but must accept an arbitrary price, which does not cover his needs, who should not he strike? He cannot, for obvious reasons, but one thing he can do, and that it, by passive resistance to taxation, show his protest. I say the time is ripe for this to be seriously considered by the conference. “As you know, action is required at times in a nation’s existence. We know well enough the amount of money that has to be raised to day, and we know that interest Tvill have to be paid.

munity that will have to bear the burden.

“I have suggested passive resistance to the payment of taxation. It is the only remedy you have got; but if you undertake it, you must be sure you are coming out all right.” Mr. Harbutt suggested that, should the farmers’ position be further jeopardised, either financially or by added costs, a Dominion meeting of primary producers in Wellington should be convened by the Farmers’ Union, New Zealand Dairy Board and National Dairy Federation, to decide what action should be taken.

Everyone would agree that the guaranteed price was only a Court of Arbitration agreement as far as the farmer was concerned, said Mr. Campbell Smith, seconding the motion. If it was a Court of Arbitration award it was the only one in the world where a man had to work seven days a week. It was also tho only award which stipulated that a man must be efficient before he would be paid. An award to come shortly before the Court of Arbitration would, if it went through, greatly increase the burden on the industry, said Mr. Ferguson, Maungaturoto.