FARMERS’ UNION DISCUSSION.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 50, Issue 85, 21 January 1930, Page 4

FARMERS’ UNION DISCUSSION.

Sir,—A discussion at the recent meeting of the Mid-Canterbury Provincial" 3 Executive of the banners Union makes doleful reading. The price of wool, meat, and otlier farm produce as every farmer /is _ aware, shows a substantial and serious decline. -The weather also has been persistently and notoriously bad. Tnese trying circumstances, conjointly, must have accounted for the Farmers’ Union appearing in one of its worst moods. A pessimistic outlook tends to depress the mind, and does not help to a better understanding of the problems that await solution. There was a time when those who guided the destinies ol finance countered the spirit cl overoptimism that was abroad in the land'. There appears to-day a real need to correct the pessimism that has crept into the community. 'Pbe Farmers’ Union is supposed to be non-political. Its members consist of representatives of various shades of political thought and opinion. The President must have forgotten these facts, when in his official position he is reported to have said, “The country is being run "by the extremists of the Labour Party and the Civil Servants.” There are not only extremists in the Labour Party but also extremists in the Farmers’ Union. One could hardly imagine a more extremist and mischievous statement than attributed l to the Vice-President of the Farmers’ Union at the same meeting, when be is reported to have said, “Single men who could not find work other than relief deserve to starve.” An untactlul, unsympathetic, unreasoned statement such as this is obviously biassed- It ctmuot pQSsibly do the

Farmers’ Union or its cause anv good, hut tends to alienate the sympathy and support of its friends, who are equally concerned in a. reasonable solution of economic- and social problems. MEMBER FARMERS’ UNION. Wiachmore Rural.