AGRICULTURAL STATE

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22194, 10 September 1937, Page 14

AGRICULTURAL STATE

ECONOMIC PROBLEMS OF N.Z. PROFESSOR E. R. HUDSON’S ADDRESS BIG INCREASE IN CANTERBURY PRODUCTION PREDICTED Some of New Zealand’s principal problems as an agricultural state were set out in an address given by Professor E. R. Hudson, director of Canterbury Agricultural College, Lincoln, to the Economics Society last evening. He said the future hf New Zealand’s primary producing industry depended largely upon whether the British workers were given a larger purchasing power, and he strongly opposed the idea of economic nationalism as a policy in New Zealand. He said he thought the drift to the cities an inevitable and quite desirable tendency, and claimed also that Canterbury stood upon the threshold of a very big increase in primary production. He was equally confident that the New Zealand fat lamb industry would receive in the near future serious competition from It was idle and almost vicious, he said, to talk about over-production of primary products. Evidence on the highest authority showed that there was. considerable malnutrition among, for instance, the people of Great Britain, and while there was this malnutrition it could not possibly be said there was too much production of primary produce. The trouble was inadequate distribution of the goods. It was wrong also to regard the drift from country to town as something deplorable. It was not; modern methods of agriculture were infinitely more efficient than in the past, and If the land was worked efficiently it was obvious enough that fewer men would be needed. The Major Activity?

New Zealand was faced with the question, which was its major activity? If it was to continue to concentrate on primary industry, then the produce of the industry must have an adequate outlet. Britain could take it all if only the British workers had sufficient purchasing power. New Zealand’s problem here was linked closely with the question whether the secondary industries of /ritain were capable of distributing a sufficient purchasing power to then* working people. He attacked the doctrine of economic nationalism, "In these days of economic nationalism,” he said, “it is perhaps rather risky to express any drastic opinion on certain of the actions taken politically, but in those actions lie many of the problems facing agriculture. In most countries the policy of economic self-sufficiency is being exploited. Even here we are not entirely free of it. There is the wheat industry, for instance, and other industries, and there is talk of growing sugar beet. These are examples ol economic nationalism, and it is questionable whether in the long run it is desirable.

“Our policy should be the ‘open door policy’ rather than one of barring the free exchange of goods by tariffs and other means. If we want to be selfcontained, w’e can be almost entirely so. There is no .physical reason against it. We can grow bananas, for instance, if we like, and citrus fruits, and so on—but the end of it all will be relative if not actual poverty. In all Its actions this country should set its face against the policy of self-suf-ficiency, and adopt the idea of supplementing the goods imported from overseas by our own manufactures. “Here in New Zealand we have also to face the fact that we are going to experience considerably greater competition in primary produce than before. In the next 10 years Australia will be taking a bigger share of the fat lamb trade. By pasture improvement in Australia and changes in the nature and methods of farming, there is a departure from the traditional merino breeding and an endeavour to combine in Australia’s sheep a combination of good wool and carcase value. Within 10 years New Zealand must be prepared to meet strong competition from this source.” Canterbury's Production It had been suggested by a prominent businessman that Canterbury had reached the maximum id its primary production, but . ris was far from true. In fact, Canterbury was on the threshold of a very big increase in the amount of its produce. In South Canterbury about one-third of a million acres were being put under irrigation—that must increase the production materially, and there were many areas much closer to the city of Christchurch where similar schemes could be carried out if the experiments in the south were successful. New crops and pasture plants were being produced and represented another potential increase in the production of the province, vince. “In a word,” he said, “we are very far from having reached the maximum production in the rural industries.” Professor Hudson said he was shocked to hear another prominent businessman say that New Zealand, because of the quotas, should not attempt to increase its production greatly. He would be sorry to see the country deliberately restrict its output. So long as there were people on the other side of the world wanting the food which this output constituted, then New Zealand’s problem was not insoluble. It was inadequate distribution that was the obstruction. This was a man-made problem and it

should be in the power of man to solve it. At the conclusion of Professor Hudson’s address, members entered into a discussion. In answer to one question, Professor Hudson said he was satisfied that the standard of efficiency attained in the agricultural industries of New Zealand compared very favourably with the efforts to get work done in the urban communities. In the urban community practically everybody was useful, but in the cities there was an unjustifiable amount of lost motion, and very high waste through competition. There was a multiplicity ox small businesses thriving on a competitive basis, and while the country could undertake the cost of these there could be no time to criticise the costs of rural production Mr W. Machin presided.