Wheat

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24570, 19 May 1945, Page 6

Wheat

If Mr L. J. Wild’s address at Ashburton yesterday did not confirm many farmers in their determination to put in spring wheat and if it did not win others from their determination not to, a sound case will have been well put in vain; and that is not easy to believe. Mr Wild has further to go in Canterbury. He can strengthen his case only if he is able to obtain more positive official backing for his belief that the labour shortage will be relieved next harvest and if he is able to offer even a chance of a bigger distribution of fertiliser. But it is a case strong enough to prevail without that additional encouragement. Mr Wild was right to emphasise the obligation that emerges from the world’s food shortage. Every effort that New Zealand can make to reach complete independence in grain supply ought to be made. The situation is one in which it is selfishly, cruelly wrong to draw wheat or flour from the world’s pool, and to divert the shipping for it from the Pacific war theatre or from the relief of Europe. The obligation falls on farmer, con-

sumer, and Government. Their agreement to carry and divide it should be clear and ungrudging. But the farmers do not need to wait to know their part: it is, making the best of the resources available and co-operating loyally with every agency of control and aid, to cultivate, sow, and reap every acre they can. Their security over the maximum price has been raised by the reduction of the acreage limit at which the maximum price will be earned. They can far exceed that limit; and, if they know how to respond to the truth when they hear it, they will.