FARMERS’ COSTS AND PRICES

Stratford Evening Post, Volume II, Issue 178, 23 February 1933, Page 2

FARMERS’ COSTS AND PRICES

The Man on the Land

Mw ; C|®S.K i 'atidfN.Z. Schemes ' |WHAT, WILL .jjDipj? ‘‘rORCED at last by relentless logic of economic exhaustion, ..I the Governments of the United States and of New Zealand appear to be on the verge of recognising the farming industry as the basis of national life—and treating it accordingly.

New Zealand has given that recognition by its management of the Exchange rate in a way which will give relief to the basic industries of the Dominion —a relief which will be carried through every phase of domestic and commercial life. The Country Party In Australia has for some time been urging action in the same direction. • *

In U.S.A. a battle Is raging around a gigantic scheme of price equalisation known by the uninspiring name of The Jones Plan. The soundness of the scheme may be open to question. But no new scheme could be more uneconomic or dangerous than that which exists—the plan of subsidising secondary industry at the expense of the farm through high tariff walls, which breed international hate and internal injustice. THE U.S.A. PLAN Th© U.S.A.- plan, which political p'rophets say will become law next session of Congress, aims jointly at equalisation of prices and stabilisation of production. Every farmer may secure from the local agent of the Ministry of Agriculture a contract stating how many acres of wheat, cotton, and tobacco, etc/, he may plant, and how many pigs he mjay raise during the year. If he lives up t o his allotment contract, the farmer will get from the Government an allotment certificate entitling the holder to 42 cents per bushel on wheat, five cents on cotton, four cents on tobacco, and two cents per lb, on pigs. These sums are to be originally paid by and collected from the millera, the meat packers, the cotton mills, and the tobacco factories who first handle the raw materials. The scheme Involves 6,000,000

farmers, and would Increase farm income by over £1,200,000,000. “The New York Times”, says that In the case of a loaf of bread, the scheme would only cost one cent —that is, a half-penny." PRESS COMMENT “The Washington News" comments: “We shall continue to support tariff Reduction, which seems to us the only effective method, but so long as industry gets its high tariff subsidy, we do not see how the country can fairly oppose the farmers’ bid for ( compensating subsidy of some j kind." America's present trouble is simi-; lari'to Australia’s. Farm prices wallow in the depths, while factory prices remain exorbitantly .high. The farmer cannot buy them with small income. The factory cannot employ without buyers. Unemployment and depression continues. ' ■ BRIDGING THE GAP The American plan is to bridge the gap between farm and factory prices, not by the direct method of tariff reducation advocated by the “Washington News,” but by the roundabout method of subsidy to Increase farm prices at the expense of factory prices, thus \ reversing the existing process, or at least seeking to equallse it.—(The Countryman.)