CRISIS AHEAD

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 68, 22 March 1939, Page 12

CRISIS AHEAD

THE FARMING INDUSTRY PRODUCERS MUST BE PREPARED MARTON, March 20. "The year just past," said Mr. A. C. Burch, president ot the Marton branch of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union, at the annual meeting, held last Saturday night, "has been a disappointing year during which we have witnessed a steady shrinkage in the real value of our work as producers.” Mr. Birch then essayed the not easy task of presenting a picture of the true state of affairs with its deeper implications. "I want to put it to you this way,” he said. "We farmers should be big enough, broad minded enough, and progressive enough to make a very solid cultural contribution to the building up of a balanced and enlightened national life. We, all of us, realise that it is within our power, given a fair chance, to make this contribution and moreover, I venture to say, it is a contribution which is indispensible to the healthy evolution of the country as a whole—Are we being given a fair chance to do this? We know we are not. It is wrong that the whole of our outlook should be dominated by the economic disability under which we suffer, but so it is. It is not surprising, therefore, that we meet together to-night to discuss the subject alas, which is uppermost in our minds, namely lhe mounting tide of costs and some of the immediate effects on the industry. Embarrassing the Farming Industry. "The policy which the present Government has pursued and is still pursuing could not but embarrass the farming industry even when prices were somewhat more reasonable as they were in 1937-38 I han they are now. It was not hard to foresee that a drop in our export prices would turn that embarrassment inlo distress for some and for others into bankruptcy ultimately. "The most serious immediate effect of high costs and falling markets is the progressive deterioration of secondclass lands. 1 mention in passing that a complicating factor here is the declining fertility of large areas which, even under normal stable conditions, would spell increasing maintenance expenditure and a narrowing margin of profit. “The road and rail charges on transport of livestock and wool have increased to such an extent that they constitute a levy on stock. These charges bear no relation whatever to the value of the article handled. "Hauling charges at ports have leapt up in sympathy with other wage rates and now are exhorbitant. “Freezing works charges have taken a tremendous toll of our meat returns, the killing charges alone have risen from £1,600,000 to £2,400,000, an increase of £BOO,OOO. "Finally we can confidently expect the position to become steadily worse, for there is a downward trend in our overseas markets and the Government is committed to further heavy loads. The whole programme of the Government is based on an expanding production and an open market in Great Britain. Yet our present Minister for Marketing has allowed, the quota to be imposed on us without a word of protest, a disaster which for len years was energetically and skilfully averted under far greater pressure than now. "If this gap between the farmers’ price level and that of the rest of lhe community continues to widen, a crisis will soon be reached. Gentlemen, I say we should be ready to meet that crisis. We should not just allow it to arrive and find us dismayed and ill-prepared.”