PLIGHT OF FARMER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 228, 26 September 1931, Page 9

PLIGHT OF FARMER.

General Smuts Sees " Almost Economic Enslavement."

SCIENCE GOING TOO FAST ?

(Received 2 p.m.)

LONDON, September 25.

Referring to agriculture in liis presidential address at the centenary meeting of the British Association, General J. C. Smuts said that though South Africa was less -affected than Canada, Australia and New Zealand, it was for the farmer as. if another war had ravaged the world. He feared vast social upheavals unless a way out was found, because the situation was unbearable. There was almost economic enslavement in mankind's primary industry. The progress of science in the development of the Empire falsified Sir William Crooke's prophecies regarding agriculture. Apparently science must be halted in order to terminate the agricultural depression. It had upset agriculture's apple cart all over the world. We must co-ordinate results, and keep the system in step. Farmers were business men. Production absorbed their energies, preventing them from marketing their products. "Farming might be so organised that its produce would reach the consumer without paying too great a tribute to a host of middlemen.