NOT UNDERSTOOD—THE FARMERS.

Waipa Post, Volume 44, Issue 3180, 21 May 1932, Page 4

NOT UNDERSTOOD—THE FARMERS.

DEFLATION is an ugly and ever an unpopular word. Its application in the modern world of commerce must inevitably produce a trail of hardship and sorrow. For that reason, even though it may ultimately prove to have been a corrective for. many growing evils, it is never welcomed, and therefore, when the Auckland provincial conference of the New Zealand Farmers' Union on Wednesday expressed an abhorrence of deflation, it probably echoed a very prevalent sentiment. Up to that point the Union may have received very general endorsement, but when it proceeded to allege a wanton and deliberate policy move on the part of the Government it very certainly transgressed from the bounds of reason. Making the Government a target for political shots is a recognised practice in all electorates which enjoy a populatr franchise, and as the Union is striving for the political recognition of a Farmers' Party it naturally may be pardoned for a semblance of party bias. : But it is neither fair nor honest to hold up any Government as a scaper goat 'for a condition beyond the immediate control of this or any other Dominion. Deflation at the present time is world-wide, and the Government of New Zealand has no more influence or control over it than the man in the moon. The Union endorsed an opinion in opposition to what was regarded as "the Govern-

mint's claim " to have a mandate to adopt a policy of deflation, and thereupon called upon the Government to withdraw its legislation imposing wage reductions and to reorganise finance and industry. Such talk is, in colloquial language, " cheap " —very cheap. 'Whether there was a mandate or not matters little. There was the sternest necessity, and the only alternative was bankruptcy. Faced with a forty per cent decline in export trade —with the ruling conditions far removed from these shores —no Government could evade its responsibilities. According to the Union, the Government is culpably responsible for the decline, and we are led to believe that there is a magic wand hidden somewhere in the Prime Minister's office which would, in a flash, restore the economic life of New Zealand. That such a suggestion should emanate from a provincial organisation, no matter how honest its purpose may be, would seem, incredible. The representatives of that responsible section of the community whose task is in primary production, and who bear the full brunt of inflation in so far particularly that the inevitable deflation involves them in such ruinous disorganisation, might reasonably have avoided such flights of extravagant oratory. The Union would associate itself with groups directly affected by the wage " cuts," even though the primary producers would have been the very first to suffer adversely a continuance of costs which might have survived in times of inflation but which meant ruin when world trade so suddenly stagnated. The attitude of the Union is paradoxical in the extreme. Whatever fault may be found with the Government, complaint cannot be made that it evaded the unpleasant task of striving to set our internal trading on a plane that conformed with the lower level of the external trade. The Union seems only to be anxious for notoriety even though it must hold up the Government as a target to practise a little political marksmanship; and it is for that reason that few will endorse its endeavour, and fewer still will treat seriously the unfair advantage it has sought out of the Government's present dilemma.