KEENLY DISAPPOINTED

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 59, Issue 4218, 1 December 1939, Page 2

KEENLY DISAPPOINTED

GOVERNMENT’S ATTITUDE CONDEMNED. DAIRY CONFERENCE DISCUSSION. Keen disappointment at the lengthy: replies given by the Hon. Walter Nash, Minister of Marketing, was expressed a:t the Dairy Board conference in Wellington on Thursday. The Board put three salient questions to the Minister for answer, and when these were submitted to the conference the first speaker, Mr C. P. Agar, representative of the southern ward said he had been a member of the 1938 Advisory Committee on Prices, set up by the Minister himself. He called attention to the Minister’s statement tha)t the report of the committee carried qualifications. The qualifications were not those affecting standards and prices, he said, but factors involved in the position that would arise if the market went down, in which case the scheme might cost the Government some millions of money. “It was plain twisting to turn that statement round,” Mr Agar said. “There was no evidence of a standard above 578f0j!>b., as recommended unanimously by the committee, so there was no evidence in the report on which the Minister could have reached his standard of 69001 b. The ,thing was determined by expediency and by what the Government thought it could get away with.” NO CONFIDENCE. Mr Agar said he felt so incensed by the reply the Minister had sent that he thought the conference should say to the Government it had no confidence in its administration of the Marketing Act. “I support 100 per cent, the attitude taken up by Mr Agar,” said Mr A. J. Sinclair, Te Awamutu. “The Government has failed miserably and we are justified in saying the guaranteed price scheme has broken down under its own weight. “I have never advocated anything unconstitutional,” Mr Sinclair added. “We must go (back and tell our people they have to take the count for the time being. We have done our best and we have got nowhere. We cannot advocate strikes op direct action, especially as there is a war on. We have to produce to the limit while this war is on to help Great Britain to win out. We will have to ittell our people this Government is unreasonable—-that is, will give us no concessions of any kind, and that we are finished.” PRINCIPLE UNWORKABLE.

Mr W. Marshall (New Zealand Cooperative Dairy Company) said the Minister’s answer to -the second ques-

tjon brought into clear relief the fact that the principle on which the guaranteed price plan w'as based had proved to be entirely unworkable and Siad broken down.

“It appears from, investigation that the men and women who farm in the Auckland Province have made up their minds they are not prepared to carry on at the present basis,” Mr Marshall continued. “They are incensed at what they See going on. I feel we have failed in our job if we have not brought the Government and the Minister to realise there is a big undercurrent of discontent on the farms and that unless something cam. be done to change that it is going ltd be impossible to increase production or even maintain it. “I think we should again go to the Minister and ask him whether there is yet any ray of hope,” Mr Marshall added. “The issues are serious and 1 suggest we should not come to a hurried decision to-day.” t “GETTING NOWHERE.” “You are disappointed and disgusted with the reply you have received,” said th|e chairman of the •board, Mr W. E. Hale. “If the resignation of the Dairy Board would bring about a solution I have no objection to that.” i Voices: That wouldn’t do. Mr Haile: As far as I am concerned, I am prepared to do that. We are trying to do the job, but we are not satisfied with the progress we are making. We are getting nowhere. I would like the conference to express its opinion regarding subsidies. I hope it will pass a resolution that it does not want any subsidies. Subsidies are inequitable.

The conference then carried the resolutions expressing disappointment wfith the Minister’s replies.