FORCING THE PACE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23002, 1 April 1938, Page 12

FORCING THE PACE

PRESENT GOVERNMENT SOCIALISTIC MEASURES REACTIONS UPON FARMING [from OUR, own cokbesfondent] WHANG AH,EI, Thursday "For decades the policy of successive New Zealand Governments has been broadly termed socialistic, but the present Government has forced the pace and has aroused resentment in precipitately imposing on ns measures which might havo been moro readily accepted at a slower rato of evolution," stated tho report of tho president, Mr, A. Briscoe Moore, submitted at tho annual meeting of the Whangarei subprovincial executive of tho Fanners' Union, to-day. " Although the Government has succeeded in part of its monetary policy, in keeping interest rates low, it has disappointed- in others," continued tho report, " Tho familiar spiral of ascending wages, with prices rapidly catching up, indicates that tho Government has largely failed. A now principle was put into operation in the guaranteed price for dairy produce. In practice the price fixed has not given tho farmer a fair deal in relation to others, cither in financial returns or in tho number of hours worked. Wo arc labouring under the heaviest taxation we have ever had, some of it unfair in incidence and all of it tending to lift costs and restrict enterprise.

" Compulsory unionism seems to mo to bo altogether alien to our New Zealand tradition of independence and the freedom of the individual, and has forced employers and employees into different camps, where before was often harmony. Tho heavy increase in costs and the labour shortage havo dealt our basic industry two heavy blows. While some cost increases are duo to overseas price increases, undoubtedly tho majority are due to legislation." The meeting decided to urge the Government to recognise that the accelerated drift from the farms was having serious effects on tho future, in lack of trained man-power and the checking of primary production, and that the matter should bo dealt with as part of a national policy and not by patchwork efforts that havo little or no effect.

Mr. A. E. Robinson said that although tho shortage of farm labour was not so acute as some had represented, there was nevertheless a definite shortage of suitable labour, as tho best labour was leaving the farms for better employment.