NEED FOR ORGANISATION

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19128, 24 September 1936, Page 15

NEED FOR ORGANISATION

FARMERS OF N.Z. RISING COSTS MR. MULHOLLAND'S VIEWS The opinion that farmers should be more efficiently organised an<l that, they could reasonably expect to see costs continually rising through much of the recent legislation of the Government, was expressed by Mr. W. W. Mulholland, Dominion president of the New Zealand Farmers' Union, to a meeting of farmers at Ashburton. "The most important point I can draw your attention to to-day is the need for more organisation among the fanners," said Mr. Mulholland. Most other sections of the community had been eoinpnlsorily organised 1 and the fanners had been left more or less to organise themselves, he said. Organisation was necessary to stand up against the weight of other efficiently organised sections of tile community. Unless ibis were done fanners would be Ihe mere serfs of Iho community, working land thai they did no| own and earning prolits that they would nol gel. he said. "SCHEME OF INFLATION"

The Government's legislation was directed, to raising wages and to raising prices artificially*, but it had not yet taken legislative authority to tix the price of any primary produce except butter. The Government's scheme was one of inflation, of which it had lost control. No one in business was prepared to give a close or wide estimate of the price of any one line for any period because of tile unstable position of affairs. It was fortunate for farmers that the present, prices for primary produce were buoyant. "The position is that no power on earth can undo what the Government has done in the last six months," said Mr. "Mulholland. If costs were to be artificially inflated then prices had to be trcate'd likewise. Speaking of the reintroduction of the graduated land tax. Mr. "Mulholland said the Minister of Finance, the Hon. W. Nash, had emphasised the principle that the Government representing the people, should recover the unearned increment on the. land. The speaker bad told Mr. Nash that the cost of bringing the land into present-day productive value was, in some cases, more than the original cost of the land. '•lf the Government is going to carry this out logically, it will have to take from all of us the community-created value," said Mr. Mulholland. EXPERIENCE OF MINISTERS

The false idea that the Government had of the position was due largely to the dearth of men with farming experience within its ranks. This false idea was illustrated recently by the remarks of the Minister of Public Works, the lion. R. Semple, on irrigation. Every one knew that the Central Otago irrigation scheme had not been able to meet a fraction of its cost. Farmers would not be able to carry the wholo cost of the Government's irrigation schemes. The wealth added by the schemes might pay the community, but the increased production of the. farm brought about bv irrigation could not pay the whole of the capital cost of the schemes.