NEW WAGE RATES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25799, 21 March 1945, Page 4

NEW WAGE RATES

FARMERS CONCERNED

BREACH OF AGREEMENT

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, Mar. 20. “ The Arbitration Court’s wage pronouncement must have a profound effect on the Government’s stabilisation policy,” says an official statement by the New Zealand Farmers’ Union.

“ Unless immediate action to adjust that policy to the altered circumstances is clearly announced at once, nothing can prevent inflation of prices through higher wage costs and higher prices causing further increases in wages in the familiar spiral. “Farmers are watching with keen interest and some apprehension for indications of the Government’s policy. By virtue of their adherence to the late stabilisation policy, expressed in an agreement between the Farmers’ Federation and the Minister of Stabilisation, the farmers are accepting part only of the price paid for their produce “by overseas purchasers, the balance being paid into various accounts established under the agreement. The federation’s adherence to this agreement was conditional ‘on the stabilisation policy as outlined by the Prime Minister being fully implemented, and failure at any time of the Government fully to implement that policy is to absolve the farmers from adherence to these provisions.’ “The increase in wages granted by the Government is a clear breach of the stabilisation policy announced on December 15. 1942, and in consequence the farmers have the right to terminate the agreement. Farmers’ organisations must now very seriously consider their attitude to the agreement, and the development of the Government’s policy in the immediate future will profoundly influence their decisions. The economic stability of the Dominion hangs on the Government’s actions in the next few weeks.”