CURRENT VIEWPOINTS

Waikato Times, Volume 195, Issue 22457, 19 September 1944, Page 4

CURRENT VIEWPOINTS

DIVISION OF PROCEEDS (To the Editor) Sir, —“Also Interested” must be the sharemilkers’ ideal employer. He cover his cows, gives them lick, etc., pays the shed power and sundries, spends £25 yearly on the sharemilker’s house, and works 70 to 80 hours a week on the farm. lam sure the 99 per cent of sharemilkers who do all the work, carry all responsibility and pay all the power bill would like to meet him. They might even get a holiday with such a boss! Even so, if “Also Interested” collects £450 interest as well as his £5 10s weekly he is not so badly off surely. There would not be any sharemilkers if they could lease farms at, say, 10 per cent of capital value, but farm owners find it much more profitable to put on sharemilkers. This proves that the land owner is getting as much and more than he is entitled to, and surely it is time the real toilers, the sharemilkers, get a fairer share.—l am, etc.,* COUNTRY LASS. SHAREMILKING agreements (To the Editor) Sir,—l note in your columns that the 50/50 sharemilker is in future to receive 55 per cent and the owner 45 per cent. I wonder how many owner-farmers realise what this means to them, and how much of the wonderful increase of 2.12 d per lb. they will get. On my supply of over 25,0001 b. of butterfat for last season my sharemilker would receive £217 8s 5d extra, while I would receive the magnificent sum of £7 7s 7d extra for the season. This is the wonderful increase in price that the farmers have been battling for for months. The sharemilker not only gets his own share of rise in price but takes the owner’s share also. So much for an extra allowance to cover increased costs of machinery, fencing, etc. Mr Fraser has certainly looked after the sharemilker, and how! On this basis there is no doubt of the trend of farming to dry stock instead of dairying. It will be a case of killing the goose that laid the golden egg.—l am, etc., DISGUSTED. IMPORT CONTROL (To the Editor) Sir, —The recent letter signed by “Independent” on the methods which the National Party might adopt when it abolishes import control contains some amusing conjectures that bear no relation to facts. My personal viewpoint is that none of the three “alternatives” your correspondent suggests is either necessary or desirable. “Independent” assumes that the New Zealand pound is grossly overvalued in terms of sterling, and that it will remain so. Would he mind giving his evidence in support of his premise? If the New Zealand pound is not over-valued at present there will be no necessity to borrow overseas, to raise the rate of exchange, or to “call up overdrafts and have another depression.” The latter conclusion, incidentally, borders on the ridiculous. Import and exchange controls are incompatible with the obligations entailed by membership of the International Monetary Fund, a fact which socialists do not appear to have grasped. In the extravagant words of the Hon. Walter Nash, who attended the conference dealing with the International Monetary Fund, “the resulting proposals, that will be considered later, probably are more important from the point of view of trade and production of the post-war period than any other single conference held inside history.” Yet we have socialists advocating the indefinite retention of import controls—described by a famous economist as a “strange and uneconomic expedient,” and condemned by all world authorities. Where is the logic of all this? Why do socialists pay lip service to international co-operation if they are not prepared to co-operate? On the general question of import control, which is bound up with exchange control, might I suggest to “Independent” that he reads the official pamphlet, issued by the Hon. p. G. Sullivan, dealing with the Fund, with particular reference to the valuation of currencies. Would he then please indicate whether he supports the principle of the Fund, and international collaboration, or not.—l am, etc.,

ANTI-HUMBUG.