REDUCING COSTS

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 191, 13 August 1931, Page 5

REDUCING COSTS

Sheepowners Critical of the Government. “ADJUSTMENT CALLED FOR.” “ Cannot the Government, even yet, see its way substantially to reduce costs within itself and thus still further lighten the burden of taxation on the community? Prodigality surely has reached its limit, and a drastic readjustment of the country’s financial and industrial affairs is called for.” This declaration was made by the president of the Canterbury Sheepowners’ Union (Mr R. M. Morten) in his address at the annual meeting of the union last evening. Mr Morten criticised the levying of the land tax. “ The past season has been one of very great anxiety, not only to sheepowners, but to primary producers generally throughout the Dominion,” stated the president. “ I think it can fairly be said that in no other branch of primary production has the present depression been so keenly felt as is the case of the sheep-owning industry. Fall in Wool Values. “ The continued fall in wool values without a corresponding drop in production costs is the cause not only of the hardship being experienced in our own industry, but its effect is reflected throughout the whole of the economic life of the Dominion. “ There can be no question but that the whole Dominion will have to reconsider the matter of production costs, with a view to adjusting them to a level which will allow a return to the producer sufficient to enable him to keep on the bread and butter line, and not below it. This was the case last year and since our last annual meeting the position has not only not been improved but has become very much worse. , “ If we can get an increase in volume of production, a maintenance of the highest possible quality, and a readjustment of our industrial and financial conditions within the Dominion, then I feel sure that in the future, we .ihall be able to look back on the present period of depression in the same spirit as our fathers did under similar circumstances in earlier days; that is, with the knowledge that we stood foursquare to trouble, faced it manfully, and worked our way through to brighter conditions and prospects, as Britons have always done in the past under adversity.”