FARMING PROBLEMS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 201, 28 August 1935, Page 8

FARMING PROBLEMS

LABOUR’S ASSERTIONS CHALLENGE TO MINISTERS 1 Per Press Association. ) NEW PLYMOUTH, Aug. 27. After dealing exhaustix clj with Lauour’s policy Mr. ai. J. bavage, in btratiord io-uighi, ma >e the following oummaiy covering larming proo.ein.,, and challenged tae Minibiers tu dea* with them seriatum: — (1) The total trade of the Dominion, intmnul and e.xiernul, depenus upu>. the buying power id the ranis and nk or New Zealand people, and cannut be increased unless at the same lime tui people’s buying power is increase.!. (2) The raising ot the rate ot ex change did nut increase the buying power of the rank and file of the people. Lt merely transferred a portion of the existing buying power irom some pockets into others, it also acted as a brake on United Kingdom sales to New Zealand, and as a consequence it lessened the British market lor Dominion products, as there cannot be one-way trade. only substantial alternative to a high rate of exchange is guuran Iced prices, beginning at an average of prices ruling during the last eig**t or ten years, mortgage liabrhtics to be immediately readjusted on that basis. (4) Guaranteed prrees depend upon guaranteed wages and ulner incomes, luey are kiudred parts of modern industrial life, and interdependent. (5) The moiivy system should be based on goods and services widen are meant to ue exchanged, thus enabling payment to be made from the publrc credit to farmer and others in equitable relationship to services rende.ed, and without increasing taxation or placing any barrier against Britain’s sales to the Dominion. (6) Public credit should be controlled in the interests of the people by a national credit authority whose duty It would be to provide a money service sufficient to give effect to the will of Parliament. (7) Recent legislation provides no immediate solution of the difficulties facing the farmers, but establishes a virtual dictatorship in the primary industries, destroys the State Advances Office and increases the powers already possessed by private lending institutions. The placing of farmers under supervision and budgetary control will reduce a large percentage of them to the position of serfs. (8) Government records show that for the ten years ending 1933 the dairy farmers of New Zealand more than doubled their production without .any material increase in money incomes. Substantial increases have also been made in the production of wool and meat, and in each case the incomes of producers have shown considerable fluctuations. (9) The farmer is entitle] to receive the difference (if any) between what he now receives in the market overseas and the amount it takes to enable him to continue farming in Nexv Zealan I.