TAKEN TO TASK.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 59, Issue 274, 1 September 1939, Page 3

TAKEN TO TASK.

NEW ZEALANDERS OVERSEAS. “VERY BAD ADVERTISEMENT.” In an open letter addressed to 31 r R. D. Robinson, of Ashburton, who was leader of the New Zealand farmers’ party which has just finished an Australian visit, a Alelbourne newspaper said: —• “We notice from the daily papers that you head a delegation of New Zealand primary producers and their wives who are on the way to South Australia, where you will tour stud stock farms, cereal-producing areas, and so on. You and your party seem bent on giving New Zealand a very bad advertisement in Australia. Most New Zealanders who visit us these days are imbued with the same idea. They seem to think that when they leave their own country, they aye under some obligation to publicly apologise for it. One thing that you have against the New Zealand Labour Government, we notice, is that ‘the sheep farmer in New Zealand to-day is hopelessly in the ruck.’ 3lay we also inform you that the sheep, farmer in Australia: — where we have not had a Labour Government for more than a couple of years in the last thirty—is also ‘hopelessly in the ruck.’ “As a matter of fact, at a recent meeting of the Graziers’ Association, representing woolgrowers in all parts of the Commonwealth, it was decided to approach the Federal Government and ask for a penny a pound bounty on wool. Another thing that you deplore is that vour Government has guaranteed a price for dairy produce 18 per cent, over the average of the. past 10 years. What have the farmers to complain of in that? “Are you endeavouring to make out that the New Zealand farmer’s trouble is that he is getting,too much money? If that be ,so, we would suggest that the New Zealand farmers are an extraordinary breed, and that you should lead your party to visit some- of our local anthropologists while you are here. You will doubtless line! them greatly interested in you. “You are complaining because the, • Government in New Zealand proposes to guarantee prices for wool and meat to the sheep farmer. The Government does not propose to do that here. But 11s we have already pointed out, the sheep farmers do propose to ask the Government for it. “While you are here you might extend your observations to local conditions in order to compare them with those obtaining in your own Dominion. Read the reports of the debate ip the Victorian Parliament the other night about unemployment. Witness the extraordinary spectacle of members of all parties reluctantly agreeing that there will have to be a substantial increase in taxation in order to provide a large proportion of our population, with work! We think that this study will convince you, if you be rea-sonable-minded people, that your Government is doing something to endeavour to right the conditions which are common to primary producers and -working people in both countries. The difference is that Governments in Australia. are not game to attempt nearly as much.”