MOUNTING COSTS AND RISING PRICES.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIV, Issue 21052, 2 June 1938, Page 8

MOUNTING COSTS AND RISING PRICES.

Notwithstanding the political soothing syrup that is repeatedly offered the farming community of New Zealand in the form of expressions of sympathy with the man on the land, and declarations that the economic emancipation of the producer is long overdue, the spokesmen of the farming community continue to voice their most vigorous protests because they say they have been caught in the cleft stick of mounting costs and falling prices. The other day dissatisfaction was pointedly expressed with the Prime Minister’s reply to a protest raised against the endless mounting of costs, especially in face of the weakening overseas markets; tiie executive of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union saying: “The Prime Minister’s reply shows either failure to understand or total disregard of the disabilities under which the primary producers of this country are expected to carry on.” “There has been a ‘marked decline’ in the prices for farm produce; the returns to the farmer are not protected by the guaranteed price, because the benefits have been cancelled out by increased costs; while meat prices are still payable there has been a drop of from 12 to 17 per cent, between the lamb prices ruling during the 1936-37 and the 1937-38 seasons; the returns from wool show a decline in the vicinity of 40 per cent.; the very fact that some industries are working 40, some 44 and some 60 or 70 hours a week shows how ‘unreasonable, uneconomic and unworkable’ the Government’s 40-hour a week policy is.” Not all tile statistical legerdemain of which Ministers are capable, will deceive the farmer. The man on the land knows that he is being hurt between rising- costs and falling prices. This awakening has come with startling effect in the dairy industry, because the dairyman and his family were clearly promised the guaranteed price, and the politicians who captured many of the farmers’ votes, have not been able to guarantee the purchasing power of the proceeds of the sale of their butter; indeed, the only factor that seems to have been fixed is the price paid the producer—all farming costs, in spite of Ministerial protests and reassurances, have the sky for their limit! It is not surprising then that the president and members of the provincial executive of the South Canterbury branch of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union should not have hesitated at the annual meeting yesterday, to express deep concern not only because the obvious weakening of overseas markets now threatening, synchronises with the persistent rise in costs of production and the cost of living,.but because fresh legislation has made it more and more jlifficult for the farmers to carry on farming operations with any anticipation of a balanced budget. New Zealand’s internal prosperity and domestic economics it is readily agreed, depend so largely on the fortunes of the man ou the laud, that if the farmer is not doing well—everybody who has any memory at all, knows just what that means to the whole community.