OUR READERS’ VIEWPOINT

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 68, Issue 5941, 10 May 1944, Page 3

OUR READERS’ VIEWPOINT

HOSPITAL RATING Sir, —There is one aspect of the campaign by the Farmers’ Union for direct action in connection with hospital rating which gives me some food for thought, and it may be briefly outlined as follows: In April of last year a Te Awamutu man took the platform all over this province to advocate the payment of an additional Id per lb but-ter-fat to the dairy farmers as a contribution towards their increased costs, and he urged them not to agree to the Government’s plan of economic stabilisation unless this was granted. Dairy farmers may have forgotten, but some of us townspeople, still remember his slogan; “If the dairy farmer has to stabilise on a 1938 price, he wants 1938 costs; if he has to stabilise on 1943 costs, he wants a 1943 price; but he will not stabilise on a 1938 price and 1943 costs.” Not only had he to fight opposition from Labour and Communist papers; he had to cross swords with some of the leaders of the industry who were so strongly impregnated with the stabilisation “bug” that they considered stabilised costs to be more important than an increased price. Nothing daunted, this Te Awamutu man persevered in his campaign, and in addition to ■ addressing .meetings of farmers and dairy conferences he went to the cities, talked to business men, university professors and students, and also wrote articles for the press. All these meetings and articles were fully reported in the Courier at the time, and I remember one statement he made, namely: “This extra Id per lb for which 1 am contending means another £1,800,000 to the dairy farpiers of New Zealand.”

What was the attitude of the Auckland Provincial Executive of the Farmers’ Union on this matter? They attacked our townsman strongly. Captain Rushworth accused him of not disclosing all the facts, and in an interview in the press urged farmers not to ask for an increased price, but to concentrate on stabilising costs. (See New Zealand Herald of 27th April, 1943.) The official organ of the Farmers’ Union (Straight Furrow) published a bitter attack on him in its issue of May, 1943, comparing him with “the harlots of all the ages who exercised power without authority.” This was a poor reward, and was surely “the unkindest cut of all” to a man who had no axe to grind, and who was merely fighting for a section of the community who were not sufficiently organised to fight for themselves.

But the Te Awamutu man won out, and had the honour of being asked by the Dairy Industry Council to place before the Dominion Conference of the Dairy Board delegates at Wellington in June, 1943, the background of the discussions underlying this claim. The official report of that conference shows that he made so strong an impression that the “stabilisers” capitulated to a man. A business friend of mine in Morrinsville (who is also a dairy farmer) tells me that at the Dairy Board ward conference there a fortnight ago he heard' Mr P. Hawke, chairman of directors of the Hinuera Dairy Company, characterise that address in Wellington as the finest and most constructive effort he had ever heard at a national conference of the industry. The Government conceded the demand, and granted an additional Id per lb butter-fat as from Ist August, 1943. Since that date every dairy farmer has received an additional Id per lb on his monthly advance payment, and a rough calculation shows that this is equivalent to over £50,000 for the season now ending to the dairy farmers in Te Awamutu district alone. Every business man in this town knows what that means.

Without entering in any way into the merits or demerits of direct action in connection with hospital rating, I would ask dairy farmers to calculate the amount of that additional Id per lb on their present season’s supply, and to contrast it with the amount they must pay by way of hospital levy. They should then ask themselves which cause was more worthy of support, and why the Farmers’ Union are now kicking up such a hullabaloo about the hospital levy. Townspeople like myself should be forgiven if we think they realise they are losing the confidence of the farmers because of actions such as I have outlined above, and that they are seizing the pretext of hospital rating in an attempt to regain some of their lost prestige. At any rate, the Auckland Provincial Executive of the Farmers’ Union appears to possess that ancient faculty of being able to strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. —I am, etc., FELLOW-TOWNSMAN.