FALLACIES

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20038, 20 September 1930, Page 14

FALLACIES

v.—THAT THE DRIFT TO THWfflsßm is Aiy unmixed :Evimm^Ke

(sPECIAILy WaiTTBK 108 THE MKSB.) ''.iffiM [l3y Peofkbsor A. G. B. Fisher, Otago T- n jJ^||l§

Human nature is so curiously constituted that, not content with contemplating real evils, many of us take a delight in conjuring up purely imaginary bogies, and in going about the country telling everybody that we are all on the verge of ruin if our bogey is not immediately laid. Nowhere is this tendency more obvious and more wasteful of human energy and thought than in the world-wide complaints that are made by people of every political tint about the drift of population to the towns. Instead of being regarded as a clear proof of economic progress, of the fact that our average income is still increasing, and of realising that as long as this happy state of affairs continues, the drift is both inevitable and desirable, many of us insist on deploring it as a sign of decadence, and gloomily tell each other that the only way to check unemployment is to stimulate the output of primary produce, of which, judging from recent price movements, the world already has quite enough. In New Zealand, as elsewhere, the proportion of population engaged in agricultural and pastoral occupations is lower to-day than ever before, and this drift from primary production is, it is widely maintained, a major cause of the economic stresses of to-day. The drift indeed is not so big as at first it seems, if we remember all the processes which are essential to-day for food production. We cannot get butter and wool without dairymen and shepherds who live in the country, tut we cannot "get them to-day without chemists and engine-drivers and fertiliser factory workers, who live in towns. The latter are as much entitled to the name of primary producer as the former, though they are not included in the rural population. But happily the drift to the towns is only in part a statistical delusion. We really are able to get bur food and our raw materials with a smaller expenditure of human energy than our grandfathers had to employ, and instead of complaining about our good, fortune, we should be very pleased, and set to wolrk thinking out such steps as are necessary to enable those whose services aye no longer Heeded as food-producers to discover what other services are needed and to fit themselves for the work of providing them. . Would New Zealand, or the world as a, whole, be better off if a larger proportion of population were employed in farming? To answer this question satisfactorily we must first ask ' what farmers are for, an ' innocent enough question with an obvious but an answer which, as much .of- the' talk about agricultural development suggests, is. Lot widely . accepted. . The reason why we have farmers, is because they provide the food and the' raw materials which are necessary for the maintenance of a good standard of living, just as we have carpenters to build houses for us, and doctors to keep its healthy. If we have afl the houses we need, we do not want any.. more .carpenters, and if we are perfectly healthy, we do not want my more doctors. Actually both our housing and health

carpenters and more food standards inother countries insufficiency of fond rials like wool, and ' seem to have an n farmers. Why not tejoraHHHß it is found possible fw'*ira||w portion of our popi^^M|B|MWJ are not strictly ncxsessgM&iHHHn nevertheless may tributions to real find the proportion in education, in healu^BßHHß amusements increasin^^H|^H^R' be done, as it obviou^rt9|H^H( our food standards seem a reasonable Many of the new be gratified are rionhHaaaßßßßjMßl barbarous, but the comes the quite di ffaratfc our standards of mechanical developmeom^^^^^B 'us to get all the food we need with a penditure of human human labour is thrift tjMBBBBF for the production which formerly we We can get them. world is growing about the towns is indeed to But, it may be New Zealand which' only by the It is of course interest charges reason for believing in the past or wiil - great difficulty in dinn|KQjjH^HH taxes which are neceaBMSBBMBM| pose. Nobody land should tion or even diminish a growing world anticipate a sion of our primax^^^^^HHß payments.*, most attractive going into them, dustries which ■ are