THE FARMERS’ BURDEN.

Taranaki Daily News, 12 June 1926, Page 15

THE FARMERS’ BURDEN.

FISCAL POLICY ATTACKED. EVILS OF OVER-PROTECTION. PRODUCERS BEAR THE BRUNT. “The increasing tendency of the Gov* ernment to give protection to all manner of secondary industries in the Dominion,” was sharply criticised by the president of the Taranaki Chamber of Commerce (Mr. Gordon Fraser) at the annual meeting of the chamber on Thursday night. In discussing the question of how business men could best help the farming community in the interests of both, Mr. Fraser condemned the increasing protective tariff as artificially feeding the secondary industries at the expense of the farmer. “Let us even in our small way tackle this problem of aiding the farming community,” said Mr. Fraser. “First ask ourselves what we have done and what we can do. Discard advice, for we want something practical. A good harbour Ot New Plymouth has resulted in cheaper manures —a saving of 25s per ton, and manures must be looked upon not as articles of immediate profit but as unborn wealth in which we will share. The profits on manure must be fixed accordingly.” Opportunities were being offered for methods of farming, as at Stratford, and agricultural colleges were to be provided. He hoped that there would be no parochial spirit shown as to where the colleges were to be located. “We cannot control the world’s prices,” said Mr. Fraser, “but that, after all, is only the gross return. The net income is the important factor.” Organised bodies of employees and workers were demanding and getting higher returns by artificial methods. It was a mistake to suppose that fiscal evils could be cured only by two remedies, the pill of protection, or the physio of free trade. The country must have-a definite policy, but not a permant policy. It was growing up all the time, and must alter its fiscal policy to suit its needs.

“Have we reached the state where secondary industries are to rank before primary?” he asked. Adopting the figure of speech that the shelter of “protection” was a hothouse wherein the secondary industries profited while the primary producer shovelled the coal that kept the hothouse heated, Mr. Fraser continued: “Is our hothouse to be a permanent horticultural show, or is it but a nursery where we steam heat the plants until they are sufficiently developed to be transplanted outside? I# it to be a hospital for the unfit, the unorganised and the unsuitable so that they will grow at all costs? Are they to have unlimited heat and never mind who pays for the coal? Are we to produce a race that will decline to fight the elements, decline to warm up by hard work, but crawl to a sympathetic government or a warm corner inside T* “The hothouse is getting overcrowded. The primary producer is working to get up the steam. The doorkeeper, who is the Department of Industries and Commerce,” who should be carefully scrutinising the credentials of the applicants with a searching and almost a hostile demeanour, is turning into a spruickel anxious as a showman to fill his tent. The wheat growers have already sneaked in. In Queensland a Labour government has admitted the dairy farmer on the Paterson plan. If they all get in, who will produce the steam? A stand must be taken against hothouse protection. The only passport must be that a more useful service to the country can be performed inside than out. “With number-plates, tinned fruits, boots, flour and so on, the manufacturer has been given free entry into the hothouse. How long are we going to ask the primary producer to go on shovelling coal into the furnace, telling, him that while he may not get much in cash he is . building up the country and his health? When he slacks we kick him with the spur of ‘More Production’!” Before very long, said Mr. Fraser, in conclusion, the exasperated farmer would cease shovelling his coal, throw his shovel through the hothouse, and the hothouse would he wrecked. And then an astonished bunch of artificially fed manufacturers would rush out yelling “Bolshsvik.”