GUARANTEED PRICES

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19104, 27 August 1936, Page 15

GUARANTEED PRICES

EKGU^HMAN f S REACTION

UNFORTUNATE TIME

BETTER MARKET BENEFIT

The guaranteed price for dairy pro duce plan applied to the Xew Zea land industry by the Labour Govern merit has naturally awakened world wide interest.

Overseas tourists are doubtful, however, whether the results of the scheme will be felt only in Xew Zealand, it being probable that its repercussions will be experienced in other countries, especially in England.

The opinions expressed by Mr. E. «T. Fetherston, . London, to a Taranaki Herald reporter are interesting. Mr. Fetherston, who is the governing director of Messrs. Thomas Meadows and Company, Limited, 100-year-okl shipping and freight firm, is visiting Australia and Now Zealand on business. He stressed the point that his ideas were purely those of an onlooker. He was optimistic as to the future of the dairy produce market, but not as to the guaranteed price. Mr. Fetherston could not give an idea of the general impression gained in England regarding the scheme as he had left London just before it was announced.

"In'my opinion .the fixation of the price for" dairy produce has been applied at a most unfortunate time," Mr. Fetherston said. "The rising prices on the dairy produce market are no flash in the pan,, but are going to continue to improve. This is the expressed opinion of experts, who regard the depression as being definitely a thing of the past. "TOO PRUDENT A GESTURE" "Considering this assured increase in the prices the advisability of the guaranteed price is, to say the least, questionable," Mr. Fetherston continued. "Then again this improvement, which is bound to continue, providing of course there is no international crisis, makes the fixed price 0f,12 9-lCd rather too prudent a gesture on the .part of the Government. "Here is another point of view one does" not hear much about," he said. "If the present fixed price continues to operate and the dairy produce prices continue to progress as I confidently expect, the farmer, as an individual, is not going to reeeive anything like the full benefits from the increased returns. Carrying this fact to its logical conclusion it means that he will not buy any considerable increase in supplies of machinery and other commodities from England. Taking this further, an Englishman will be buying butter at a higher cost and thus helping this Dominion, b,.. he himself will not receive any of the indirect benefits he has previously experienced.

"Well, of course, it is then just, a question of whether the consumer will prove unselfish enough to allow that state of things to continue. During the depression England could see, things from New Zealand 's point of view, and it is to be hoped that New; Zealand can do the same during the recoverv." •