FARMERS PERTURBED

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 54, Issue 3898, 7 May 1937, Page 5

FARMERS PERTURBED

LABOUR AND GUARANTEED PRICE. Mr Shanks (Otorohanga), at the meeting in Te Kuiti of the Northern King Country executive of the Farmers’ Union, brought forward a remit that the executive be asked to impress upon the committee considering the fixation of the guaranteed price that the cost of farm labour be dictated, not by the scale under farm workers' legislation, but on the conditions in industry generally and in the public works.

Fears were expressed that farm labour would become even scarcer.

Mr H. Mason said that apparently the Government did not consider that the farming community were entitled to the wages of the industries in the towns and the cities. The Union should ask that the fanner be put in a position to pay wages equal to those in other industries. Mr Roberts said that, unless something was done, farmers in many areas could not keep on developing their farms.

Mr Con Riddle said that the object should be to have farming receiving the same benefits as other industries. Then the farmer would be able to pay high wages. Mr Mellsop said that the basis of the guaranteed price should not be the average over eight or ten years, but should be on the same basis as that on which other industrial conditions had been based, the 1929 levels. Mr Robinson said that the monetary question had to be put right. For many years the farmers had been looking for relief from increased costs and had got nowhere. After considerable further discus sion the remit was carried.