THE FARMERS' SOVIET

NZ Truth, Issue 931, 29 September 1923, Page 5

THE FARMERS' SOVIET

TO BE ORJJOT TO BE? SHUfFLER PQUTKIANS DODGE BEHIND A REFERENDUM

WILL FARMERS ACCEPT COMPULSORY BOARD?

The Prime Minister, who once said that the referendum was the sheet anchor of the political shuffler, has ordered a referendum of farmers on whether they will accept a Dairy Producers' Control Board armed with compulsory powers. . The Prime Minister has frequently condemned both referendum and compulsion. Political expediency prevents him from doing -so now, and impels him to pass the responsibility on to the dairy farmers themselves. They had better give the great big "No" that Mr. Massey would like to give, had he the required political courage. The farmers had better vote "No" m their own economic interest, as well ac m their political interest. Vpting "Yes" means giving an economio Big Stick to an unknown and untried body, and a political Big Stick to Extreme Laborites, who ask for no better opportunity.

The dairy farmers will presently be asked to voto for or against the Dairy Produce Control Aot, which is based on the prinoiple of a unified compulsory oontrol of the marketing of dairy produce. ;The most 'conspicuous instances of a unified control of industry 1b found m trusts and combines, but trusts and combines have not the backing of compulsory legislation powers. Par from leaning upon special Acts passed for their benefit, they often exist m defiance of all law. This flourishing, m the face of antitrust laws, is the best evidence of a real vitality m the. private trust or combine. Such an organisation certainly leads no Qovernment- protected, hothouse existence. The best thinkers among Socialists have always held that the private combine is doing spade work for Socialism, but, at' the same time, have recognised that the self-reliant qualities which such a combine draws from its independent status differentiate it from State Sooialism and from collective control, and make it a hard, perhaps impossible, model for a bureaucracy to copy. LAW. BUTTRESSED TRUBTS-iAND SOCIALISM.

Success of ♦ any unified control Is, to the State Socialist, good evidenoe as

far as it goes. But it become infinitely better evidence, to him, if the. unified control is State-buttressed and ts reinforced by special compulsory legislation. State Socialism can always reproduce, out of its own mill, a Statesupported organisation, but it cannot reproduce the combine that is made up out of individual energy and brain whetted by private ambition. It follows, then, that the academic interest which a State Socialist feels m an inimitable combine like tho American Meat Trust Is intensified when a State or semi-State combine is set up, to compete, on a collective legal backing, with the unified control established illegally (or unlegally) by individuals. The success of an artificial organisation that anyone can build up, provided he secures the control of the Parliamentary machine, is what the State Socialist looks for. And, strangely enough, it is the anti-Socialistic farmer who just now Is trying to supply the correct model. There could not be a more striking case of extremes meeting. The Dairy Produce Control Act could not have been passed without the aid of the Labor Party. The Labor Party is devoted as a matter of principle to the very device that the farmer is grasping after as a matter of x mere expediency. THE FARMER IS BOLTING— WHERE? If the proposition to which the farmer subscribes Is sound, it proves far more than tho farmer expects or desires. And that is just what the Labor Party wants it to prove. Politics make strange bedfellows. But m this case the Labor Party can at least claim consistency of principle. And the farmer emphatically cannot. Laborltes anC Socialists would be delighted to see the farmer use Parliament to out-trust tho trusts. But they will be disappointed, because .the farmer fall* Just as badly m practice as m principle. What has the farmer done to show that he can out-trust the trusts? The New Zealand Meat Producers Board ia still on its trial. How this country, with its excessive number or small freezing companies (many of them farmer-controlled) headed by a Meat Producers' Board, is going to compete with "trust -ed" Argentina, where tha average freezing works unit is immensely greater, is a problem still uneolvoS. , But for tho moment all the economic odds ooem to bo m favor of the system of comparative centralisation (as m Argentina) as againßt New Zealand's over-dccontx'allsation. coupled with fallurei likn that of tho Wellington Farmers' Meat Co. What ttUo has the farmer done? Some people point to the success of "Bawra." But "Bawra" (the British Australasian Weol Realisation Association) wan essentially a. concern run by l?Uß|ne«fl brains an apart from farmer brains. "Bawra" wan a specialised expedient to meet n special opportunity. "Bawra" was capable marketing, but lt« founcompulaory powers over the dairy pro-

dation was Australia's virtual monopoly of Merino wool. There is ho monopoly of the dairy produce m T7hich the new Dairy Producers' Board (cousin of the Meat Producers' Board) is expected to work marvels. .=■ There is no natural monopoly, as m .Australian Merino wool, nor i* a farmer-dominatod body likely to reproduce the devious ways by which I American combines impose their will on markets — even were such reproduction desirable. [ These are perilous waters for the business man to wade m. Often he gets beyond his depth. And the farmer finds himself m deep watereven where the wading is much less treacherous. THE ONE-BIG-GAMBLER. The marketing of dairy produce is not a simple problem even for people with a much better business record than that of the New Zealand farmer. The question of consigning, as. against selling, has all the elements of a gamble. .Many factory directorates or managements "fall In" over it, and will the position be bettered by substituting, for a number of gamblers. One Big Gambler, to be fashioned compoaitely out of unpromising personal material? The One-Big-Qambler la to have

ducers. The One-Big-Gambler can compel them to market througrh him. In reply to this it is said that the One-Big-Gambler need not use his compulsory powers, and probably will not; that, like a policeman m a disturbed zone — and the rural zone Is disturbed! — he must carry a gun, but not for use, etc. Here again the farmers are taking a leaf out of the book of Extremist Labor. Advocates of the One-Big-Union try to chloroform moderates with the dope that the One-Big-Union gun (the general strike) will never be used, that it is merely a weapon to help collective bargaining, etc. The argument is as rotten m one case as m the other. It is as rotten as the argument that the swollen Prussian army and navy would be forever an unused death-machine passively supporting Prussian diplomacy, THE COMPULSION GUN WILL GO OFF. Experience shows that where a weapon of undue offensive calibre is forged, there is always a danger that it will be used. Whether the Meat Producers' Board or the Dairy Producers' Board is behind the gun, the trigger ia liable to be pulled m spite of the pacific protestations of the gunner. The latent power of such a producers' board is no more an empty formality than is the latent power of the One-Big-Union. And if Ono-Blg-Untonlsm gains political power, how Us heart will delight m the Dairy Produce Control Act! It has been correctly said that the principle of compulsion, which is the basis of the Meat Control Act and of the Dairy Produce Control Act, is dangerous to everybody except Socialists and Labor extremists. That compulsion has not been exercised by the Meat Producers* Control Board is beside tho point. The fact that tho Meat Producers' Control Board has been gauging warily is no ovidenoe that It will continue I to do so when growing confidence causes it to put its hand upon its sword-hilt. Again, what has the farmer done to show that he can elect a unified control—armed with tho Bolshevik powor of compulsion — that will solve market-* ing and distribution problems ns yot unsolved by private business capacity? j His elect have made some sad blunders m ' commercial undertakings — have not bettered, but have worsened, tho not very high standard of business attainment. Parmer-ccntrol hau beon marked by a strong tendency to take all that it can out of business at both ends, to the gain of tho fi.rmer aß a sollor and as a buyer; but not to the gain of tho buKlness. A propensity to gamble, combined with under-eapUulisntton, has led to shipwrecks. What is wanted m New Zealand Ih un inero.iHu m paid-up Capital and a decrease m nominul capital. There Is still a whole* heap of inflation to bo got rid of. on farms and nl«o m farmer companies. Who m tho political shuffler now? Who Jh It who endorses the Labor principle ot the referendum — not as principle, but as political expediency !

Marketing improvements may do much, but they will not correct this inflation. If values were put on a sound economio basis the farmer could produce and sell $o meet the market., PEABANTBV AND WORKMEN'S COUNCIL*, No attempt to make the market meet him is going to be a sufficient substitute. And yoking In compulsion will not solve any problem, except some of the platform problems that now confront Labor candidates m rural constituencies. ' Since the farmers have declared for economic Soviets' of their own, it will be quite m order for a gentleman with a red tie to address the electors of Cow Plat on the need for Peasants' and Workmen's Councils. In the middle of all this stands a pathetic figure— William Ferguson Massey. 1 Who -has been so strenuous an enemy of Sovietism and compulsion? Moreover, who was it who said that the referendum was the sheet anchor of the political shuffler? Surely it was the same William . Ferguson Maasey. And now W.IM&, xltiven by rural votes— or by supposed manipulators of rural votes— brings m a BUI establishing a principle he really hates, and as a last resort puts m an amendment referring it to a vote of the dairy farmers.

Will the farmers vote according to common sense? Will they havo the courage that W.P.M. does not possess? Will they vote out the creation of a mock-trust m which they place no trust? Whatever there is of value m a better marketing is vitiated by the element of compulsion. Whether considered economically or politically, the question is one that admits of none other than a negative vote.