GUARANTEED PRICES

Waikato Times, Volume 124, Issue 20740, 25 February 1939, Page 6

GUARANTEED PRICES

Guaranteed prices for next season’s dairy produce have become a lively topic for discussion among farmers before the controversy over last year’s prices has died away. The Hon. W. Nash has asked that the farmers next season accept the prices fixed for the current season, but according to information given at the ward conference at Morrinsville, there is no likelihood of that price being willingly accepted by the farmers. Indeed, if the Minister of Marketing stands by his original formula, there should be some advance on the price paid in the current season, for it is not disputed that costs have increased since last prices were fixed.

Figures submitted by the advisory committee which recommended prices for the current season have been adopted as standard requirements by the dairy industry, which sees no point in making another inquiry except insofar as it is necessary to add additional costs to the prices recommended. So, apparently, the controversy that raged last spring will be repeated in the coming season. The Government will have the final word, but by its own formula it will owe to the farmers some advance on the present prices.

Mr Nash probably realises more vividly than anyone else how difficult is the way of anyone who attempts to change economic laws. Facing the necessity of declaring the fixed prices for next season, he is conscious that there may be a substantial deficit in the accounts at the end of the present season, even after he has thrown into the balance the £600,000 he withheld last year. Yet he has laid down the dictum that the farmers are to receive allowance for increases in costs of production. If the present season’s prices were unsatisfactory to producers a year ago, the same prices will be even more the subject of protest next spring.