NEW DAIRY PRICES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23146, 19 September 1938, Page 14

NEW DAIRY PRICES

EDITORIAL COMMENT CRITICISM OF GOVERNMENT ADVISORY COMMITTEE REPORT UNANIMOUS RECOMMENDATIONS The following are .extracts from editorial comment upon the announcement bv the .Minister of Marketing, the Hon. W. Nash, of the guaranteed price to be paid for the current season's dairy produce:— Evening Post, Wellington.—"l" fixing this season's price the Gove ,nent has adopted what might be billed a middlo course, but in doit j, so it is likely to find that it will please nobody. Certainly the farmers will not 6how any enthusiasm and the rest of the community is not likely to regard with equanimity the prospect of a deficit of £935,000 in the Dairy Industry Account, with the likelihood of recurring deficits so long as the guaranteed price gamble continues. There will be built up in the Reserve Bank a debt of such proportions that its liquidation will impose a tremendous burden on tho taxpayers of the country. Its nonliquidation will mean inflation of the most flagrant kind, with all its attendant evils. The further the guaranteed price plan goes the plainer its dangers become and sooner or later the Government must realise, if it has not already realised, that its effort to solve tho problems of the dairy farmer has not only failed but will, if carried to its logical conclusion, threaten the security of the country as a whole." Evasion of Formula Dominion, Wellington.—"The dairy farmers have been well fooled again by the C/o vernment's slippery evasion of its guaranteed price formula. The report of the Advisory Committee set up to investigate the whole position leaves no room for doubt on the matter. The price recommended was 1G.750d butter-fat for butter, and 18.750 d butter-fat for cheese. This represented an increase of 2.,'57(1. Instead, the Government has decided to give an increase of only lid a lb. The first thing to be noted is that the Government has again ignored the recommendations of the Advisory Committee. The second is that the committee was composed of seven expert members, f four of whom were nominated by the Government and .three by the dairy- • ing industry. The third, and vitally important, point is that the recommendations of the committee were unanimous. In spite of the fact that there was a majority of Government nominees on the committee, and in spite of 4he fact that the report was •unanimous, the recommendations of the committee were rejected and a .lower price fixed. The Minister of Marketing used a lot of words and juggled with figures in his usual way in an endeavour to show that he could .not pay out what the committee "showed the farmer to be entitled to. All that lie proved by his figures was that he had promised more than he could fulfil." Market Prices Gamble Otago Dairy Times, Dunedin.—"ln the face of the recommendations of the Advisory Committee the Government could hardly do other than accept the responsibility of paying higher prices for the current season's dairy output. Thus it becomes involved in a bigger gamble than ever oh market prices over which it has no control. And neither the farmer nor the taxpayer will be satisfied, or see any reason to congratulate the Government on the working of the scheme for which, on such feeble foundations, it has claimed immeasurable credit."