FARMERS’ PROBLEMS

Taranaki Daily News, 14 December 1926, Page 13

FARMERS’ PROBLEMS

BIC WANGANUI RALLY PUBLIC ECONOMY URGED. BETTER CONDITIONS DEMANDED. REDUCED TAXATION WANTED. Farmers and citizens gathered in a rally to draw public and official attention to their difficulties at Wanganui on Thursday, when all parts of the North Island were represented at a mass meeting which summoned the Government to create immediate improvement in rural economic conditions (says the Chronicle). Present, among others, were the Minister of Lands (Hon. A. D. McLeod) and the Minister of Agriculture (the Hon. 0. Hawken), who took no active part in the proceedings, but doubtless took note of the trend of opinion. Resolutions calling for the abolition of the Arbitration Court, extension of New Zealand markets overseas, economy in public expenditure to make taxation reductions possible, and establishment of the-:system recommended by the Rural Credits Commission, were adopted by the gathering, whieh unanimously demanded better conditions for the men on the land.

Mr. W. J. Polson, the chairman, said the object of the gathering was largely to gain the sympathetic consideration of townspeople. He was glad to see many townspeople present. The promoters of the meeting wanted the city people to realise their problems. It was not an occasion for panic. They realised that the adverse conditions eould, with the public assistance, be remedied, and they were confident that, realising the facts, the public would give them the required assistance. “It is a fact,” he said, with reference to taxation, “that we are unable to maintain our farms.” MAKING ENDS MEET. Owing to the drop in the prices of their produce, now little more than the 1914 rates, while taxation and other costs, as well as public expenditure, had doubled many times, they were unable to make ends meet. He quoted statistics revealing, with the possible exception of defence, the enormous increase in expenditure throughout the public departments. If the prices they were getting for their produce were at all normal, then they were justified in insisting on drastic economies on the part of the Government. (Applause.) Another reform they considered necessary, said Mr. Polson, tracing pointy in the platform advocated by farmers, was reform of financial arrangements. What was considered a sound scheme for a system of agricultural banks had been drafted after close investigation abroad, but the Government had not adopted the report of the Royal Commission responsible. What was needed was the punch of public opinion behind the measure, as they could not market their produce satisfactorily at the other end of the world unless they had the benefit of cheaper money. EXTENSION OF MARKETS. Mr. Polson went on to deal with the , need for more markets. At present they had all their eggs in one basket—they were doing all their business with the Mother Country—and they were trying to make England eat two pounds of butter and two chops where one pound of butter and one chop would do. He was satisfied that reasonable tariffs would permit them to find good paying markets elsewhere than Great Britain.

The farmers wanted some sanity with regard to tariffs. They did not want the madness of over-protection to continue, causing the fanner to stagger under the load of taxation. He was the only one who could not pass on the effects of tariffs. Great industries, he contended, were never built up by over-protection. Further, the farmer wanted a better land settlement policy.. Most of those present were aware of the tragedy of New Zealand's second and third-class lands. He was glad the Minister of Lands was aware of the position. Settlers had given their lives, and the lives of their wives and children, for the sake of their farms, yet were still confronted by bankruptcy. That land had to be brought hack into production. (Applause). That could only be done by remission of pressing tax demands, and by financial assistance for the struggling farmer. Continuing, he urged that more money be devoted to the needs of the Department of Agriculture. In a country chiefly dependent on agriculture, that was surely not too much to ask. DEMANDS OF LABOUR. Lastly, they wanted a Government chat would give them some security with regard to the demands of labour. As employers of labour, they knew what was happening. They had lately had an increased shearing award, and if they did not look out they would have an increased award for the freezing workers. A voice: They are entitled to it. Mr. Polson: Well, if they get it, I don’t know who is going to pay it. The producers can’t. (Applause.) Mr. Polson said they would not stand the thing any longer. Every year, at a busy season, their industries were paralysed by the demands of labour. It could not continue. In this and other matters they- were up against organisation, and would have to organise themselves to protect their interests. Every farmer must assist in carrying the load. They did not want anyone riding on the “band wagon,” as the Canadians termed it. Mr. Polson said farmers in America had hammered away at the facte, so influencing public opinion, and getting Congress in sympathy with them. It was that method they proposed to adopt in New Zealand. They did not aim at political action, but they wanted public opinion with them. Results achieved in America disclosed that the American farmer’s policy had got him his place in the sun. He had the Government of his country at his baek. He appealed to them, in conclusion, to give their .support. Influential people throughout the Dominion had telegraphed during the day wishing the meeting success, and supporting the motives prompting the promoters to arrange it. "AN ALARMING POSITION.” Sir Andrew Russell, of Hastings, said

the position being what it was in this country, townspeople, farmers, and the labour classes as well, were interested in the situation. He quoted figures showing the position of a property in which he was interested. Heavy interest charges had to be paid. Whatever might be the position on paper, the country was poorer than it was in 1914. Rates were very much heavier, but that was a phase in which he thought they could do little. They could not reduce the rates. Land tax and wages had doubled, while working expenses had more than doubled, owing to deterioration of lands and protective duties making them pay more money for implements and other necessities imported. Increase of output was what they wanted, to conform with the increase in wages. He believed high wages would ultimately lead to greater consumption, but they joust have greater output to go with it. They had to pay the interest on their debts. They could not go back on their contracts, or on their word, but the position threatened at present was that they could not square their accounts. If they could not make a place pay on paper, they were very unlikely to be able to make it pay any other way. (Laughter.) England’s purchasing power, he went on, had diminished, and to combat their difficulties they had to have all sections of the community with them, labour included. (Laughter.) FREE TRADE ADVOCATED. Mr. W. B. Mathieson, of Eketahuna, vice-president of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union, was the next speaker, and prefaced his remarks by stating that, as one who had to work every day for the last 36 years, he could sympathise with labour, and considered himself a labour man.

Mr. Mathieson went on to advocate free trade, and criticise the imposition of protective tariffs. He pointed to the tariff against imported footwear, for the benefit of the New Zealand footwear industry, as a glaring example. Rather than keep the operatives in employment by such methods, they should send the employees out into the open spaces to develop land and increase primary production. Reaffirming that he was a labour sympathiser and a believer in unionism, Mr. Mathieson said he did not want to see unionism reach the stage it approached in the days of medieval trade guilds. He wanted to see men do a good day’s work for a good day’s pay. Dealing with labour’s demands on the freezing industry, he said they could not expect, in the next 30 years, the same rising markets as had developed in the past 30 years. Someone had said the freezing worker deserved extra pay. The same voice: Yes, he is entitled to it.

Mr. Mathieson: If he is really entitled to it, no one on this platform will not want to see him get it. If they turned from one group of the community to another, making awards, the thing would break with its own weight. A voice: What is your alternative-profit-sharing? Mr. Mathieson: The logical alternative is distribution along lines that amount to Socialism, but Socialism is a theory of perfection, and you cannot apply it to us common humans. With knowledge of both ends of the stick, he said the man who had got awards had a disproportionate share of the good things, in comparison with the backblocks settler and his wife, in consideration of the hours worked. (Hear, hear.) PLEA FOR THE BACKBLOCKS. Until the backblocks man and his wife had a wage award, the man in the city was not privileged to have one. (Applause.) The drift of population to the town showed that town life was more attractive. Yet every man taken from the country meant less production. They had to face the facts, and the situation that New Zealand was living beyond her means. (Applause). Mr. William Perry (Masterton) proposed the chief motion of the evening, worded as follows: — “That this meeting demands security in regard to labour, and while freely conceding that the worker is entitled to the highest reward he can obtain, declares that breaches of awards are a menace to production and a clog upon progress and that it is the duty of the Government to abolish preference where sueh breaches occur.” The reason for their presence at the meeting, he judged, was that they wanted to know why production was falling off, and why people were leaving their farms. Clearly, it was because there was no money in the undertaking. If there was money to be made, people would be there. He was satisfied that land could be bought to-day at reasonable prices compared with the fictitious prices paid in the boom times. A comparison of the prices of produce to-day with prices of produce 20 years ago revealed that land values to-day corresponded. He remembered the time when 9d per pound for his wool was the highest he had ever heard of. Meat, similarly, was at a better price to-day than it- was formerly. He remembered fattening sheep and selling them for 8s apiece. New Zealand had been built up on a farbric of low prices, but the economic position had become unsound, and they had to get down to it, and find out what was wrong.

They wanted to get a steady price for their produce, rafher than boom prices, which people in England could not afford to pay. He believed the farmers —to some extent forced into the position by their bankers—were being cautious, and were perhaps not launching out enough for increased production. The slump of 1921-22 was still fresh in their memories. He pointed out that despite the slump, industrial awards were not reduced in any way. If they had an Arbitration Court holding up artificially, as it was doing, the cost of living, that was one reason for the unsound economic position of the country. FREEZING WORKERS’ STRIKE. They had just gone through a freezing workers’ strike, forced on the men, many of whom wanted to work, by the Alliance of Labour. The arbitration awards were only dealing with part of the community. They were not dealing with farmers. It was an unfair position, and could not go on. He wished to stress, not so much the wages given by the Arbitration Court, but the opportunity given to the unions to restrict the output. He pointed out that a double-farrow plough cost £2O more now than it did in 1914. A bricklayer was only allowed by his union to lay 400 bricks a day. A voice: He could lay them before breakfast. At this stage a section of the meeting became rowdy, and Mr. Perry was interrupted by the thumping of feet.

Mr. Perry pointed out that the output of slaughtermen was also restricted by the union. The economic position of New Zealand had to be changed if things were to flourish, anil increased production was largely the key to the situation. The motion proposed by Mr. Perry was seconded by Mr. A. Stuart (Marton), who said he was not up against the working man. He had had experience as a wage-earner himself, although he had been an employer of labour now for some years. Thirty years ago he got work at Westmere, was sacked, and went to work picking potatoes on a 600-acre farm at Marton. He was the owner of that farm to-day, but had not got it by working an eighthour day, swinging on gates, and going to picture shows. He and his employees needed no Arbitration Court. They got on all right, and his men were satisfied to be paid by results. As a farmer wage-earner he thought the workers were entitled to a fair thing; they were entitled to be able to keep themselves, and put a bit away for a rainy day, but that could not be done at the expense of others. There were backblocks settlers who did not have two pennies to rub together at the end of a year’s work. He believed the Arbitration Court had outlived its usefulness. It was reducing the best man to the level of the worst instead of raising the worst man to the level of the best. He thought New Zealand was living just a little too high—too much sport, and too much pleasure. It was the fault of a lot of farmers that they were in difficulties. Too many farmers were encumbered three or four times over. The position was not as simple as it looked. Reviewing the platform outlined by Mr. Pelson, he said tariffs must go down, and credits must be restricted. CORRECTING AN IMPRESSION. Before the motion was put by the chairman, the Minister of Lands (the Hon. A. D. McLeod) pointed out that the law at present was on the lines set out in the motion. From the back of the hall came an amendment, which the chairman ruled out of order. A gentleman in the front of the hall moved an amendment that the Arbitration Court be abolished altogether. Speaking as an ex-shearer, he said in the old days rates of pay were arranged with the “boss/’ His own son, now a shearer, told him it was a bad day when he did not make £3 a day. Yet he himself, now a farmer, did not make £3 a month.

A voice: You get paid by results. (Laughter.) “The Arbitration Court is no good to anyone,” went on Mr. Parkes, “and it should be abolished together. In the old days we used to sell our labour to the highest bidder, the same place where the farmer sells his wool.” Mr. G. Mitchell seconded the amendment. Mr. McLeod said it seemed from the actions of the principal labour unions that both sides wanted the abolition of the Arbitration Court. The amendment, when put to the meeting, was carried practically unanimously. REDUCTION OF EXPENDITURE. “What the farmers are asking for is a fair deal and an opportunity of making a decent living,” said Mr. John Cobbe, of Feilding, in a motion calling on the Government to make drastic reductions in public expenditure. The farmers, he said, had reached the limit in taxation, and he quoted figures illuminating the difficulties confronting farmers. On the opening prices of fat stock alone, compared with last year’s prices, the farmers of New Zealand stood to lose over one million and a half pounds. The farmer was up against difficulties, as was shown in the case of the shearers’ award, when the Arbitration Court made its award, regardless of the condition of the industry concerned. After the Commissioner of Taxes had done with the farmer, the Arbitration Court took what was left. (Laughter.) The suggestion that a greater measure of protection was to be sought for local industries was disquieting to the farmers of the country. It was essential that the farmers organise, as had been shown "ever since a man called Adam took up a section in Mesopotamia. (Laughter.) “The farmers have been disunited ever since,” concluded Mr. Cobbe amid laughter. BURDEN OF HOSPITAL LEVY. Seconding Mr. Cobbe's motion, Mr. William Morrison said he would like to supplement the remarks of previous speakers regarding taxation. He suggested that a means of remitting part of the burden on country people was to be found in relieving them of some of the burden of hospital and charitable aid maintenance. He believed that the country people were carrying an undue proportion of that burden, and they asked that levies be based on 50 per cent, population and 50 per cent, capital value, instead of on the present system of determination. It was a reform they were going to ask for very vigorously, and next time they went to the Government the Government would have some heads tn count, the heads of some 50,000 farmers backing the request. Further, they would ask that Native lands from which no rates were collected should be exempt from hospital levies. Mr. Cobbe’s motion was carried. LONG-TERM CREDITS. Easier finance was the subject of the next speaker, Mr. C. K. Wilson, of Pio Pio. He referred to the agricultural bank proposals, and the evolution of the recommendations of the Rural Credits Mission. He then moved a motion calling oa the Government to give effect to the recommendations of the Rural Credits Royal Commission. Mr. H. Goldsbury: Where are you going to get the money 1 Mr. Wilson: My dear man, you don’t know the ABC of finance. (Laughter.) By assured finance and the proper use of fertilisers they were going to double the production and save New Zealand. The five years’ system only meant a harvest for the lawyers. (Laughter.) They wanted long-term credits. The motion was seconded by Mr. J. H. Joll, Havelock North, Hastings. He said he knew of cases where the taxation on farm land to-day amounted to £6O or more per acre. Taxation meant the difference between success and failure. He recommended the striking of preferential rates. People on farms overburdened Uy taxation could not succeed. They were simply being made slaves. It was the country's duty, by keeping down the rate of interest and taxation, to help those people.

Mr. G. V. Pearce, Waitotara, in speaking to the motion, said the way in which income tax had been levied had been a particularly heavy burden on the farmer. Mr. Wilson’s motion was carried. MORE MARKETS WANTED. Mr. J. Vickers (Taranaki) moved a fourth motion, that further markets be secured for New Zealand produce, even if tariff bargains were required to obtain them. Mr. John Morrison, the seconder, said the finding of new markets was a most important thing for New Zealand. Britain could not purchase all the Dominion’s produce, so they would have to send it elsewhere. He believed the people of New Zealand were living above their means. He did not think wages were too high, but the employers were not getting an adequate return lor the money paid out. Speaking as a member of the Chamber of Commerce, he assured the meeting that the business people of Wanganui were anxious to assist the farmers. (Applause.) The motion was carried, and the meeting concluded with cheers for the chairman, Mr. Polson, and the National Anthem.