The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. TUESDAY, JUNE 17, 1930. THE LAND AND THE NATION.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 141, 17 June 1930, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

TUESDAY, JUNE 17, 1930. THE LAND AND THE NATION.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do.

That the Dominion President of the Farmers' Union sometimes provokes criticism by members is more to his credit than otherwise. There is nothing of the amiable figurehead about Mr. Poison; he has ideas and personality. The address that he delivered to-day at the annual conference of the Uniou is typical of his intellectual activity and the breadth of his sympathies. He does not say to the farmer merely that he is the backbone of the country and must (to use an old jest) be brought to the front. Naturally enough ha emphasises the vital importance of farming, but he ranges his eye over the,general economic situation; says something sympathetic about other industries; warns his hearers that the necessity for reducing production costs "does not mean that the first thing to do is to rush out and proclaim a general reduction of wages"; and recognises that the unemployment situation demands new measures. Without agreeing with all that Mr. Poison says, one may say that there is here the mind of the student and the outlook of a man who sees beyond the immediate affairs of his class.

The gist of Mr. Poison's address is that a return to high price levels for our produce cannot be looked for, and that therefore production costs must be reduced. Though Mr. Poison perhaps exaggerates the effect of the shortage of gold, there is a good deal to be said for his contention. It is significant that of the five "features" of the past year enumerated by Mr. Poison, four are "declines" in prices, and the fifth is the extent of unemployment. It is, however, one thing to say that production costs must be reduced, and another to advise in detail how it is to be done. Mr. Poison sees the difficulties of the situation. It will not do, as he says, to rush round blindly reducing wages, and though he favours tariff reduction, he recognises the danger of leaving secondary industries naked to the wind of overseas competition. He seems to put most of his trust in tariff reduction, and he proposes a "Bounty Board" instead of a Tariff Board. This Board would have to justify each grant made. But the bounty system seems to us less satisfactory than a tariff, and there is nothing to prevent the introduction of a system by which every industry asking for protection or more protection would have to establish a-case.

Mr. Poison's , statement,' therefore, is more valuable for its examination of the situation than for the remedies proposed. In the meantime, it is fc satisfactory to note, recognition of the imperative necessity for more land settlement grows, and settlement itself is being extended. The Minister of Lands has just stated that 468 rural sections have been disposed of since the United Government took office, and he makes it clear that the Government is continuing the opening ujp of Crown lands with'the purchase of private estates. A lands policy cannot be built, launched and got under way in a moment, and considering its inheritance from Keform and the difficulties of the time it has done well. While the country is finding a way of accommodating production to lower price levels land settlement must go on.