CHARGE REFUTED

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXVIII, Issue 74, 21 March 1933, Page 5

CHARGE REFUTED

MR. GOODFELLOW ANSWERED “TALKIN([fARMERS” LEADERS AT FAULT Mr. Campbell, president of the New Zealand Manufacturers’ Federation, has made the following statement: — “I cannot believe Mr. Goodfellow is serious in charging New Zealand with a failure to honour its obligations under the Ottawa agreement. The immediate adjustments in our duties asked for by Great Britain were effected as Mr. Goodfellow knows within a few weeks of the conference. As regards a general tariff revision it is common knowledge that the British Trade Commissioner, Mr. L. A. Paish, is now in England preparing the case which he is to submit to the Commission. Does Mr. Goodfellow suggest that the inquiry should commence before the United Kingdom representatives are ready? Mr. Goodfellow’s refer-

ences to the manufacturers are very wide of the mark. The federation is prepared to help the Government to obtain the real facts about the existing tariff and its effects and we are in a position to show how very substantial concessions can be made to the United Kingdom without in any way injuring New Zealand industries. At the same time, every reasonable person must agree that it would be madness for New Zealand now to do anything which would injure or destroy her manufacturing industries or check her industrial

expansion. Messrs. Goodfellow and Polson, leaders of the farming industry, have allowed our farmers to drift blindly into a disastrous position —a glut on the market, an inferior product, absurdly high land values and interest charges, uneconomic farming methods and inefficient marketing. As a recent statement by the Manufacturers’ Federation pointed out, these farm industries are being supported now only by subsidies and concessions charged upon the rest of the community to the extent of not less than £12,000,000 per annum. Let Messrs. Goodfellow and Polson and other propagandists, of farm industries, turn their attention to putting their own house in order. This at-

tack upon the manufacturers is merely a red herring to draw the farmers themselves away. from realising how badly their own affairs have been bungled. The Manufacturers’ Federation deeply regret this country versus town issue which again and again has been raised by the farmers, but. probably the farming farmers are not as narrow and selfish as the talking farmers would have us believe.”