The Auckland Star: SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1928. THE FARMER AND REFORM.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 267, 10 November 1928, Page 9

The Auckland Star:

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1928. THE FARMER AND REFORM.

WITH WHICH ABQ INCORPORATED Sty* Euwting Nmbb. 2Jrou an& .211}* foljn. ■ ■ For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs r&Astance, For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do.

One of the most remarkable of recent political developments in New Zealand has been the. rise of the so-called Country Party. During the many years of Sir. Massey's career as Leader of the Opposition it was always taken for granted that he was "the farmer's friend"; and when, after 1911, the Reformers at last took offlee, they drew their chief support from "the man on the land." Naturally this changed attitude on the part of a considerable section of the rural population has aroused strong resentment in the Reform ranks, and the farmers are' reproached by the Reform Party's leaders for ingratitude and disloyalty. Yet while we believe the formation of the Country Party to be wholly unnecessary, we consider that this instinct of revolt is sound. For the man on the land, unless he happens to be there on a very extensive scale, has been forced by bitter experience to realise that the Reform Government has not been kind to him. It is the large landholder, the man of many acres or thousands of acres, to Avhom Reform looks for its chief inspiration and its financial support. It is the big landlord, not the small farmer, who has been protected and patronised, for whom specially beneficial laws have been passed and specially ingenious methods of preferential treatment have been invented; and the average ordinary man on the land can hardly be blamed for seeing the difference and feeling it acutely. It is hot our present purpose to discuss the Country Party's political platform, but rather to consider the. general causes of discontent which have produced among the rural population this reaction and revolt against Reform. The farmer, of course, suffers from general bad government just as the townsman does, and the government of Reform has been bad. But there.are two things absolutely indispensable to the primary producers in all countries —an adequate supply of land at a price bearing some relation to its productive capacity, and an adequate supply of money. Under Liberalism, for over twenty years, our farmers had the benefit of legislation .which. supplied them on a generous scale with both these requisites. .The Lands for Settlement Act enabled thousands of primary producers to establish themselves firmly on the land; and the Liberal system of land tenure, combined with the Advances to Settlers system, enabled our farmers and. settlers to finance themselves with safety and success. The Reformers, when they ousted the Liberals, paid Liberalism the sincere compliment of borrowing the Lands for- Settlement Act and the Advances to Settlers system; and it is the failure of Reform to assist the small farmer by the judicious and generous application of these Acts, coupled with the booming of the freehold tenure, that have done much to cause such deep-rooted discontent among farmers. The farmers do well to grumble. They cannot get good land at a fair price largely because enormous areas are locked up by the big landowners, and the Reform Government is afraid to apply the Land for Settlement Act to its own most powerful supporters. On the, only occasion since the war on which large purchases could have been made with advantage to promote land settlement the Reformers expended a great many millions on land purchased at the seller's own price, thereby inflating land values and preparing the way for the existing widespread depression of our rural industries. Sunk deep in debt, and submerged in piles of mortgages, about which the Goverment refuses the country full information, our unfortunate primary producers may well look back with regretful longing to the days when a Liberal Government proclaimed itself "the farmer's friend.". And to-day, when the last survivor of our great Liberal statesmen proposes a scheme that would meet the country's financial needs and provide adequate funds to help the farmer from the "slough of despond" in which he has been plunged, Reform has only cheap humour to offer by way of reply. Our primary producers have had ample opportunity to discover for themselves the truth about Reform. Farmers of this province have in United candidates' men who stand midway between the. two extremes of Reform and Labour, and they can best show their disapproval of the Government's record by voting for them.