LACK OF POLICY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 78, 1 July 1943, Page 4

LACK OF POLICY

PRODUCTION OF FOODSTUFFS GOVERNMENT CRITICISED (From Our Parliamentary Reporter) Wellington, This Day. All the indications were that New Zealand would not be able to get off to a Hying start after the war when the world would be crying for foodstuffs, said Mr F. W. Dodge (Nat.. Tauranga) in the House of Representatives yesterday, speaking on the second reading of the Finance Bill. He said that the trouble was that the Government had no production policy and no land policy. Primary industries of the Dominion he said, had been let run down and it would be hard to wind them up again. For a long time past they had been taking everything out of the land and putting nothing back. The Government was not wholly to blame for farms going back. There were other reasons, such as climate, labour conditions and lack of fertiliser. The pig industry was a typical example of the Government’s lack of policy, said Mr Doidge, and producers in it had been humbugged and hampered more than anyone else in the community Was it a fact, he asked, that there was a margin of £55,000 between the price paid by the United Kingdom Government and that received by the suppliers in New Zealand? Could not that amount be used to assist the farmers in getting supplies?