THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1932. THE FARMER AND PRODUCTION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21827, 14 December 1932, Page 6

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1932. THE FARMER AND PRODUCTION.

Upon whatever subject he may elect or find himself called upon to speak the Governor-General may be depended upon to give a thoughtful, well-in-formed utterance. His observations before the Rotary Club yesterday relative- to the problem associated with the marketing of the products of the land presented an illustration in point. His Excellency laid emphasis upon certain broad considerations which are frequently overlooked. In the popular mind, probably, one of the most firmly established explanations of the world crisis consists in “ over-production.” If by that is meant that there is too much of everything for the world’s needs, it is only necessary to contemplate the needs to upset the proposition. Again, if What is meant is that the need for all the goods produced exists, but not the purchasing power, the argument is encountered that, while this belief may often hold good concerning this or that specific commodity, it can never be .true concerning all commodities because the purchasing power for commodities consists ultimately of commodities. Speaking particularly in relation to the products of the land, his Excellency pointed out that if the monetary medium of commodity exchange were plentiful and the law of supply and demand were allowed freely to operate, there would be no appreciable over-production of food and the raw materials of clothing. If there are surpluses in some parts of the world there are deficiencies in others. Production and consumption are obviously not meeting to-day, and are prevented from so doing by impediments of an artificial kind which Call for removal. It has been said that the most conspicuous cases of over-produc-tion occur in agricultural products and in raw materials rather than in manufactured goods, since the manufacturer rarely produces for an anticipated demand, whereas the individual farmer has to produce what he can and take his chances. As an instance of specific over-production wheat is often cited. But even while the case that there is over-production of wheat may be dear, the production being measured against a demand relatively fixed, we have none the less his Excellency’s pertinent reminder that, although last year the world price of wheat Avas loAver than >t had been for forty years, this did not prevent its price to the populations of France, Germany, and Italy being double the world price or the enforcement in these countries of regulations restricting its use in the making of bread. While wheatgrowers are conferring in different parts of the world as to the desirability of curtailing their production, and while wool is more or less a drug upon the world’s market, it remains a fact that about one-third of the world’s population is underfed and under-clothed while the other twothirds of it are consuming substantially less of the products of the land than Avas the case before the war. In normal circumstances the fall in the value of food commodity prices should have increased the demand. As his Excellency put it, but for man-made impediments imposed in supposed national interests the cheapness of food would have increased its consumption and facilitated the absorption of the Avorld’s output. Not over-pro duction, but the blocking of the channels , of circulation of commodities, stands out as the great problem that is to be solved before a world recovery can be looked for. International readjustment is pressing and inevitable, as his Excellency says, unless economic adversity and a serious lowering of the general scale of living are to become normal instead of temporary world-factors. It must be part of the business of the World Economic Conference, which is to be held in the coming year, to face and discover a solution of tins problem. The question of balance in production will ahvays be of importance, but the GovernorGeneral’s appraisement of the situation

from the farmers’ viewpoint is encouraging to the efficient primary producer in New Zealand in that it is calculated to dissipate apprehension on his part lest his occupation should become permanently unprofitable.