FARMERS FOREGATHER

Waikato Times, Volume 111, Issue 18641, 20 May 1932, Page 8

FARMERS FOREGATHER

PROVINCIAL CONFERENCE. | FURTHER PROGRESS WADE. SEVERAL REMITS PASSED. (Special Reporter.) AUCKLAND, Thursday. The annual provincial conference of the . New Zealand .Farmers’ Union was continued at Auckland to-day. Throughout the morning the conference discussed in committee the proposed protection league scheme, finally referring the matter back to the committee appointed to deal with it, Addresses were given in committee by representatives of the Labour Defence League on the subject of the rights of free speech. This afternoon domestic affairs were discussed in committee, and this evening many members were present at the Country Party convention. Further remits were passed as follows : Bay of Islands. —That we view with alarm the proposed action of the Government in absorbing into the Consolidated Fund the special moneys collected per medium of benzine tax for roading purposes. Bay of Plenty.—This executive considers that all petrol taxation should be utilised for all past, present and future making and maintenance of highways and byways. Bay of Plenty.—That the law be amended to enable any number of local bodies functioning in the same district to amalgamate and operate as one body, where so desired by a vole of the ratepayers concerned. Waikato Sub-Province. With a view to varying the incidence of hospital rating, so as to more closely accord with the benefits received from hospitals, this conference urgently requests the calling together of a conference, representative of those local bodies levying direct for hospital purposes. Northern Wairoa: That Government be asked to have all duties removed from wheat and flour. Northern Wairoa: That Government be asked to have all duties removed from cement of British manufacture. Whangarel: That this conference demands that the following goods be exempt from protective customs taxation: (1) All foodstuffs; (2) stock foods; (3) implements of production; (4) all Cither articles that cannot be produced economially within the Dominion. Bay of Islands: This conference considers that where any industry requires assistance to enable it to become established or to compete with unfair competition from overseas, such assistance should be given by means of subsidy, and then only after a thorough and public investigation of the circumstances. Roduction In Protective Duties. Bay of Islands: That as Great Britain, our principal customer, has no protective tariff against New Zealand products, a gradual reduction, with a view to abolition, should be made In the protective duties imposed against the products of Great Britain. Bay of Islands: This conference is in favour of hospital and charitable aid being made a national instead of a local body charge. Bay of Islands: This conference considers that the exporting primary producers have been loaded with a burden of taxation which has become intolerable, .and urges the gradual reduction of all taxes on the necessities of life and implements of productidil. Bay of Islands: This conference is of the opinion that assistance rendered to industries by subsidy is rendered mainly by those having the ability to pay, i'.e., by those above the exemption limit and who pay income tax, whereas assistance rendered by import duties falls almost entirely upon the shoulders of those who are least able to bear the burden, including the working farmer in a small way. Penalty on Rates. ■ Northern Wairoa: This executive asks that the ten per cent, penalty on rates be abolished. Northern Wairoa: That the 12.} per cent, subsidy on rates should havo been applied in the reduction of ail rales, the benefit applying to all ratepayers and all rates, whenever paid.