INQUIRY URGED

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21088, 14 July 1938, Page 4

INQUIRY URGED

Disability Suffered By Farmers DECISION TO APPROACH GOVERNMENT By Telegraph —Press Association WELLINGTON, July 13. In adidtion to affirming the principle of the compensated price, the New Zealand Farmers’ Union Conference carried a special resolution calling on the Government to set up a special statisticians department under the control of a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society of Great Britain to find the net disability suffered by the farming community and convert it into New Zealand money value. Before consideration of the matter the conference went into committee lo hear an address by Colonel Closey on the compensated price. The following remits were then moved by the Auckland delegates: (1) That the compensating price campaign offers a most effective means of organising all farmers and securing for them economic justice. This conference urges that the Farmers’ Union give the campaign its wholehearted support. (2) This conference affirms that the principle of the compensated price is applicable to all branches of primary industries as a matter of equity and justice, but without a commandeer of products by the Government,

The following amendment was moved by J. H. Furniss (Auckland). (1) To set up a special Statisticians’ Department under the control of a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society of Great Britain (to be nominated bv the Council of that society). (2) To instruct the special statisticians to compile and examine all the necessary data to assess the net disability (after allowing for all direct and indirect concessions, freight, insurance, handling and other transport charges (if any) suffered by New Zealand primary and exporting industries by reason of and/or other charges imposed by legislation from—to the present day. (3> To then assess by all necessary data similarly compiled the continuing disability suffered by the exporting industries from year to year. (4) To supply such assessed disabilities in the form of equation to an arbitration tribunal. (5) To set up a special arbitration tribunal which shall consist of an equal number of assessors appointed by the farming industries and Government presided over ’’v a supreme court judge, and which will decide the prices of primary products by an interpretation in terms of New Zealand money of the assessed disability supplied by the special statistician, and such prices shall be binding on all parties and upon the Government. (N.B. It is considered that the disability extends back as far as the introduction of protective tariffs and the inception of heavy capital expenditure from the proceeds of loans).

Putting the necessary idea Into a phrase, said Mr Rushworth, the resolution referred to the net disability suffered by exporters by reason of the legislation of the last threequarters of a century. There was certain statistical information but it was unreliable and it would be necessary in the first place to set up some machinery by which they could arrive at the information they desired.

Amendment Opposed Mr W. W. Mulholland vigorously opposed the amendment which, if carried, would mean entirely altering the basis of the policy of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union. “It will split us from top to bottom,” he declared. The amendment meant the setting up of a tribunal to fix prices in New Zealand, and the Union had always opposed such a vote. If that portion cutting across the union’s policy were cut out, the attack would still be directed against the setting up of an organisation to collect statistics. “The thing is too urgent to bother about collecting statistics,” he said. "We know what the position in New Zealand is to-day.” It was proposed to set up some sort of commission to take evidence, but how much action was taken on a commission’s recommendations? Mr Furniss said he considered that the matter would best be served by handling the amendment as a special resolution. His amendment was withdrawn and the Auckland remits were carried.

Mr Furniss then moved his previous amendment as a special resolution. Clauses 1,2 and 3 of the resolution were carried, the remaining clauses being withdrawn on the ground that the conference had already endorsed the tribunal remit carried at the recent meeting of the National Dairy Association at New Plymouth.

It was also decided that the report of the Investigation should be published from time to time as it was available.