NOT UP TO SPECIFICATIONS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22412, 7 May 1936, Page 10

NOT UP TO SPECIFICATIONS

Substantial grounds were given by the Opposition in support of its motion that the Primary Products Marketing Bill should be referred back to the Government for further consideration. One of the most telling points is that the bill fails to eliminate price fluctuations as it purports to do. Prices are still to be moved up or down, being fixed from time to time (the intervals are not stated) at the single will of the Government. The guarantee proves to be variable and therefore cannot be said to stabilise the industry. Nothing can be stabilised on a shifting base. Part of the object of the so-called guarantee, moreover, was to let the farmer know in advance what the price 3 of his products would be so that he could make his plans accordingly. It now appears that he is not to have the advantage of certainty. He will not be told what the Government will pay for his dairy products until the very eve of the new season. Apart from his farming plans, he will want to know whether he can afford to hire labour under the new and more costly conditions. According to Mr. Savage, mortgages are also to depend on the guaranteed price. Have producers, workers and mortgagees all to wait until the season has begun when, if the price were announced now, they could set about making their arrangements and plans in an orderly manner? Another good reason why the Opposition suggests the Government should reconsider the bill is because the methods laid down for fixing prices are impracticable. In the coming season the difficulty will not be so great. It should be possible to strike an average of past prices and allow sufficient to cover rising labour costs. In the future, however, when allowance has to be made for the many general and detailed factors stated in the bill, it will be impossible so to balance and reconcile these as to arrive at a result expressed in prices.