EMPIRE FARMERS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19700, 4 August 1938, Page 2

EMPIRE FARMERS

TRADE REGULATION ACTION IN AUSTRALIA SYDNEY, July 21. Action is being taken to establish a central organisation of Australian primary producers, and commodity -councils, to explore avenues for the expansion of trade. This will L'.v the foundation of the scheme of Empire trade co-operation adopted at the British Empire Producers’ Conference held in Sydney in March. The central organisation will represent the 30 Australian bodies which sent delegates to the conference, and it will be represented on a liaison committee to bo established in London. Details of the scheme will probably* be announced shortly. The creation of the commodity councils will require legislative endorsement, as they will operate somewhat on the lines of the Empire Beef Council and the International Beef Conference. “New Marketing Method” Mr. M. P. Dunlop, M.L.C., who was appointed by tiie conference to act as secretary pro tem of the provisional liaison committee, said yesterday that the formation of a central organisation for the whole of Australia would presage a new order of marketing—the replacement oi competition by co-operation. Mr. Dunlop, referring to the proposed commodity, councils, said it was intended that they should direct the Ilow of commodities to the overseas market to ensure an even spread, and so prevent the disaster of alternate gluts and famines. The intention was to keep the market stable by a regular supply of commodities equivalent to its needs, and so prevent violent fluctuations in prices, which, in the past, had proved injurious alike to the consumer and the producer, “The proposed liaison committee will be the central representative of every leading farmers’ organisation in the British Empire, and its voice will be that of every farmer in the Empire,” lie said. “If we in Australia do our share to fulfil tiie conference decisions, I do not think that we will find the United Kingdom or any of the other Dominions neglectful of their duty.”