PROVINCIAL FARMERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20563, 14 May 1930, Page 14

PROVINCIAL FARMERS.

REMITS FOR CONFERENCE.

MANY SUBJECTS COVERED.

MEETING AT WHANGAREI.

[BY XJSLEGBAPH.— OWN CORRESPONDENT.] WHANGAREI. Tuesday.

A total of 159 remits, covering many branches of agriculture and industrial activity, awaits the 30th annual conference of the Auckland Provincial branch of the New Zealand Farmers' Union,* which is to be held at Whangarei on May 29, and the three following days.

The remits covering the settlement of land include one from the Bay of Islands urging a uniform system of land valuation by°all Government departments, and one that the Government be urged to adopt a more vigorous land settlement scheme. .Another is that this conference urge the Minister of Agriculture to introduce legislation which will place the Crown in exactly the same position as any other landowner with regard to noxious weeds. The executive forwards a. resolution calling upon the Government to remove duties on butler, meat, cheese and similar agricultural produce, such duties being not only unnecessary, but liable t-o create wrong impressions, both within and without the Dominion. A remit from the Bay of Islands pledges support to free trade within the Empire. Another remit urges a gradual reduction with a view to abolition of the protective duties existing against the products of Britain. The executive suggests that for the purpose of permanent road and bridge construction and maintenance on main higliwavs and secondary roads, and after allowing a reasonable reserve for contingencies, the balance should bo capitalised and take the place of the Government grant of £ 200,000 a year now granted to the Main Highways Board for capital expenditure, but that this grant should be diverted to the Public Works Department as an extra grant for expenditure on purely back-block roads.

Dealing with the question of unemployment relief, an executive remit is that the conference deplores the present necessity for unemployment relief works, but considers that so long as tha co-operative contract system is applied to these as to standard works, the same schedule of piecework rates should apply, and thus remove any suggestion that the unemployment problem is being used to depress the standard of living of the wageearners.