PRICE TRIBUNAL

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 55, Issue 3927, 16 July 1937, Page 8

PRICE TRIBUNAL

FARMERS’ UNION PROPOSAL. EQUALITY OF MEMBERSHIP. A motion that a tribunal presided over by a Judge of the Supreme Court, holding office for eight or ten years, should compute the price of dairy produce was carried by the Dominion conference of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union last evening in Wellington. It is proposed that the tribunal should be appointed by a committee consisting of equal numbers of members nominted by the dairy industry and the Government, that the price should be determined on evidence and accepted by the Government, and that the proceedings and findings of the tribunal should be treated as are those of the Arbitration Court. NO SAY IN THE MATTER. “It is most unfair that the Government, which is the sole buyer of the produce, should nominate the committee who advise it,” said Mr D. B. Higgins (Auckland), who moved the motion. “The committee, while they may claim to be farmers, are not representatives of the farmers. We did not elect them and have no say at all. We feel that in future we should have the right to elect an equal number of members. We do not mind whom the Government elects so long as we have that right. Even if we get a compensated price we shall have to have a committee.” ADOPTION OF REMITS. The following remits also were carried:—“That this conference calls the attention of the Government to the increasing mountain of costs the primary industries are being called upon to bear with no opportunity of passing these costs on to the consumers, as is possible in every other department of industry and commerce, and expresses the emphatic opinion that a substantial addition to the price for butter-fat and cheese for the current season is essential if the farmer’s standard of living is not to be reduced further and the productive capacity of farms jeopardised. Thai this conference opposes the recent action of the Internal Marketing Department in increasing the retail price of bacon by 3d per lb. without any corresponding increase in the price to the producer.”