SHEEP-FARMING

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVI, Issue 21244, 14 January 1939, Page 17

SHEEP-FARMING

ECONOMIC CONDITIONS OF INDUSTRY WAIRARAPA FIGURES “Mr Cook is evidently completely out of touch with the economic conditions of the sheep-farming industry,” says the New Zealand Farmers’ Union in a statement issued in reply to the assertions made by Mr A. Cook, secretary of the New Zealand Workers’ Union, in a recent issue of “The Dominion.” “The best reply" which can be made to him is contained in the following figures which apply to a well-run place in the Wairarapa. It will be seen that for last season the net return before the deduction of interest is just about the same as for 1932-33, which was one of the worst years of the depression. Income Wages and Rates, per running taxes and sheep exes, insurance.

Position Worse This Year “The disastrous' fall in the price of fat ewes and the fall in the price of wool will make the position worse for this year. “So far as reading is concerned it should be repeated that if the present policies are allowed to continue it will not be long before New Zealand has the best roads in the world, and nothing to cart over them. So far as our second and third-class country is concerned, this aspect is much more serious than is realised. The figures of land under occupation will demonstrate this, for, according to the 1938 Year Book, nearly 109,M0 acres of land have gone out of production. “New Zealand is something like a man who has placed a fifteen-roomed house on a fifty-acre farm and then asked the farm to pay for it. So far as housing for farm workers and their families is concerned, the Farmers’ Union has been endeavouring for some months to place concrete and practical suggestions before the Government. “It should be reiterated, however, that it is hopeless to talk of land settlement or increased production till the economic position of the industry has been put right. The figures quoted above should prove that.”

s. d. s. d. s. d. 1930-31 .. 10 10 4 8 Not given 1931-32 .. 10 10 3 9 1 3 1932-33 .. 10 4 2 8 1 3 1933-34 .. 18 4 4 6 1 1 1934-35 .. 18 7 4 10 1 4 1935-36 .. 26 0 5 0 1 6 1936-37 .. 25 0 6 5 4 10 1937-38 .. 23 5 9 0 7 9 “The return per sheep on the above place before the is as follows:— deduction of interest s. d. 1931-32 5 9 1932-33 6 5 1933-34 13 9 1934-35 12 5 1935-36 19 6 1936-37 13 9 1937-38 6 8