MINISTERS AND FARMERS

Southland Times, Issue 23146, 12 March 1937, Page 8

MINISTERS AND FARMERS

Lively Meeting At Pukekohe appeal for a fair HEARING THE GUARANTEED PRICE SCHEME (Special to The Tinies) AUCKLAND, March 11. Interjections, mingled with laughter, applause, and a certain amount of booing, were so frequent at a meeting or farmers which was addressed by the Minister of Agriculture, the Hon W. Lee Martin, in Pukekohe that tne chairman, Mr A. White, felt it necessary to intervene. Mr Lee Martin, who was accompanied by the Minister of Labour, the Hon. H. T. Armstrong, was addressing a rally convened by the Farmers Union and held in the Masonic Hall. Over 500 people filled the hall, and amplifiers conveyed the speeches to others outside who wer& unable to gain admission. , The Minister’s reply to a demand by Mr J. H. Fumiss, on behalf of the Farmers’ Union, that the price .for dairy produce should compensate the farmers for the cost of production, was punctuated by frequent interjections, which rose to the chorus volume at times, and both the chairman, Mr A. White, and Mr Fumiss had to appeal for a fair hearing for him. Interruptions particularly greeted references by tne Minister to the present guaranteed price as a liberal interpretation of the Government’s promise. Minister’s Forecast The Minister declared that for the first six months of this season the average payment for butterfat had been 12.413 d a lb., as against 11.71 d for the first six months of last season. 111 say this, and I’ll give £5 to any institution you like to name to back it, that the New Zealand Co-operative Dairy Company will pay out Id a lb more for this season’s butterfat, and I wouldnt be surprised if it is lid,” Mr Martin said, amid laughter and applause. An expert committee was charged with tabulating dairying costs to guide the Government in fixing the guaranteed price, continued the Minister. To help them, dairy companies and daubfarmers were invited to send in their balance-sheets. Unfortunately the Government was not receiving the cooperation to which it was entitled in this regard. It had hoped to announce the guaranteed price for next season in May, but it is now doubtful whether it would be known then owing to the delay in receiving the necessary details from the industry. The case for a higher payment for the farmers was expounded by Mr A. C.' A. Sexton, M.P., who spoke after Mr Lee Martin. Mr Armstrong’s Reply Laughter, applause and booing, with intervening periods of attentive hearing, comprised the audience’s reception of a extremely vigorous reply to Messrs Furniss and Sexton by the Hon. H. T. Armstrong. “The statements of Messrs Fumiss and Sexton are bristling with inaccuracies and economic absurdities, and I am going to show the reason why,” Mr Armstrong declared. “Before we were returned to power dairy farmers throughout New Zealand told me they would be in clover if they got 1/- a pound for butter —■” Voices: Yes, but what about the 40hour week? The Minister said the price had been fixed at more than 1/-. A voice: What about rising costs? You’ve been asleep. The Minister: Yes, and it’s a pity you ever wake up. Mr Armstrong said he looked upon farmers as among the hardest workers and the most exploited in New Zealand. Freezing Works Trouble This led to interjections about the stay-in hold-ups at the freezing works, and a very lively interlude, while the Minister explained his actions in settling the trouble. “No section of the community is going to take charge of other people’s property and remain in possession as long as I am Minister of Labour,” said Mr Armstrong. He emphasized that the payment of higher wages enabled the workers to pay high prices for the farmers’ produce. “You can’t have an impoverished working class and a prosperous farming community,” he continued. Laughter from some of the audience greeted this statement. “Is the Minister going to tell the Geneva conference that one-third of the people of New Zealand are working a 60-hour week to keep another third on 40 hours, and the other third on sustenance?” was another question. Mr Armstrong: The Minister is going to do at Geneva what he does here. He is going to tell the truth. He will tell them where the 40-hour week applies, and possibly point out where it can be applied. Labour for Farms Another questioner asked what the Minister proposed to do to enable farmers to compete for labour. The Minister replied that it was his aim to ensure that the farmer was in receipt of an income that would enable him •to pay wages on a par with those in other industries. A resolution, which was carried by an overwhelming majority, requested that the. farmers should be paid a price which would close the gap between the level at which they sold their produce and the costs they had to meet; enable them to pay attractive rates of wages; and allow them reasonable interest on the capital invested in their farms and stock.

Very strong exception was taken in another resolution to the remarks of Mr W. H. Freeman, S.M., from the Bench at Gore, that it was “all bunk” that farmers could not get labour. The resolution characterized this as a great miscarriage of justice, unprecedented in the history of the country, and urged that the Farmers’ Union should take the matter up with the Minister of Justice.