The Press Thursday, August 14, 1924. Farmers and Politics.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18151, 14 August 1924, Page 8

The Press Thursday, August 14, 1924. Farmers and Politics.

That farmers as farmers should keep out of politics is a fact which the Auckland Executive of the Farmers' TJnion :i pi-ears to be quite unable to grasp. In ctn- own columns, and in the columns of :nost of the newspapers which havcdi.jf:ussed the matter, reasons enough to '"'O.nvhK-3 all but the most stupid or the utterly perverse have been given why farmers should pray to be delivered from the further complication of politics by a Farmers' Party. Already the moderate forces,' which stand between the man on the land and the antiagrarian Socialists, are divided by the tactics of the Liberal Party, and they would be still more seriously divided if a Farmers' Party were to put up candidates for Parliament, Nobody could gain anything from the organisation of a Farmers' Party except the Socialists, who have been so greatly encouraged by their successes in 1922 that they are threatening to contest ev«ry seat. Thai consideration alone ought to be conclusive for the average farmer, and it is conclusive for farmers outside Auckland. Th?ro is the more general consideration, that the multiplication of sectional antagonisms does not make •for the good health of the nation, leading, as it must, to a hazardous scuffle of interests in which thoro will be no security for any section at all, and least of all for the i'annerß. In any case, as we have often painted out, and as every farmer knows, the interests of the man on the land are safer in the hands of the present Government than they could be in uny other hands. It might have been supposed that the restless politicians or would-be politicians in the Auckland Executive of the Farmers' Union would have considered, and attempted to answer, these criticisms of their misguided dc sires. ■ But-at;the meeting of. tho Executive which wo report to-day there was no 'alga that these reasons tgainst political action wero either considered or understood. On the other hand, there were maxiy signs that these Auckland agitators caro nothing for facts. One member actually said that unless a Country Party were formed the Labour Party would score very heavily at the next elections! The fact is that hardly anything would help Labour so much as the disunion amongst moderate men which a Country Party would create. Another member, who has taken a leading part in the agitation, has so little understood the matter that he has gathered that "th<j principal objection "had 'been that by entering politics "farmers would probably impair the "Farmers' TJnion. "■ That result certainly would follow, but it is an altogether trivial thing beside the fact that the interests of the farmers would suffer serious injury through the assistance a Country Party would give to the Beds. The same member said that "it was "only by having the threat of a Cou'n''try Party hanging over its head that "the Government has dene anything at "all to help the farmers." From this rather nonsensical and obviously baseloss statement one may infer that tho prcmoters of the Country Party believe that they can terrorise the Government. If eo, they are mistaken. The Beform Party is not one which takes kindly to being threatened by anybody. It would be sorry to see farmers supporting the new and unnecessary organisation.which i& contemplated, but it would not be "in tho least disposed to make concessions to it. In the meantime Eoformers will be watchful to prevent fanners from being misled, to their undoing, by an agitation which can only injure their- interests and which is led by men who are obviously exceptionally ignorant of the facts of politics and of political principles.