FARERS’ FEDERATION

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 68, Issue 5941, 10 May 1944, Page 4

FARERS’ FEDERATION

DESIRE OF PRODUCERS Some sheepowners were being accused of forming the Dairy Producers’ Association for the express purpose of wrecking the Farmers’ Union, but nothing was further from the truth, said Mr F. N. Smith at a meeting of the Auckland branch of the iNew Zealand ‘Sheepowners’ Federation in Hamilton. Farmers were joining the Farmers’ Union because it had the machinery of organisation, which could be used to better effect if more support were given to the union, said Mr B. Syme. Most of the members of the Farmers’ Union were dairy farmers.. If a proper federation of farmers came into being the union would automatically become the dairy farmers’ section of it. In the Otorohanga district farmers deplored the friction between the Dairy Producers’ Association and the Farmers’ Union. At various meetings which had been held throughout the province, said the chairman, Colonel N. P. Adams, the opinion had been expressed that all producers should be members of their respective sections. The value of a farmers’ federation had been recognised. Various schemes had been submitted for a federation and they would be considered by a committee in Wellington.

The meeting carried a remit, copies of which will be forwarded to the Farmers’ Federation and to the Sheepowners’ Federation headquarters, as follows: “That in view of the concerted opinion expressed at numerous mass meetings of farmers held throughout the Auckland province the Farmers’ Federation be urged to take action at once in order that the farmers may know what scheme, if any, has been advanced for a federation of the primary producers of New Zealand.”

CAMBRIDGE MEETING

At a meeting of about 50 farmers, mostly sheepfarmers, held in the Parish Hall under the aupices of the Sheepowners’ Federation, unanimous support was given to the Farmers’ Federation. Motions were unanimously carried asking the Farmers’ Union and the Sheepowners’ Federation to do their best to form a working basis prior to August so as to be in the position to place a united farmers’ front before the Government. Other motions were carried asking the federation to try to obtain from the Government a guarantee that further contentious legislation, opposed to farming interests and thereby adversely affecting the production effort, would not be introduced; also expressing concern at the new Local Bodies’ Act.

Among the speakers was Colonel N. P. Adams, president of the Auckland branch of the Sheepowners’ Federation.