The Press TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1945. Farmers and Direct Action

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24740, 4 December 1945, Page 4

The Press TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1945. Farmers and Direct Action

As milch courage as wisdom was shown by Mr W. W. Mulholland, president of Federated Farmers, in his address at a National Club luncheon yesterday. There is little doubt that, even when some cooling of temper and steadying of thought are allowed for, a word from their leaders would still carry a majority of the farmers into some sort of planned direct action in protest against the changes recently introduced ’ into the electoral law. Reports of farmers’ meetings all over the country show that they were ready to combine in bringing economic pressure to bear on the Government, following the example of groups which have proved that supply talks louder than resolutions. One meeting called on the leaders to order direct action or to resign. Mr Mulholland chose to say frankly tha. only bad leadership would instruct farmers to hold their produce and stock from the market. If they did so, they would be the first to suffer. If they organised, alternatively, a gradual slowing down of production, the effect would appear in distress and loss mounting to its intolerable ;xtreme in, say, five years; and the painful, long process of building up again would follow. (Meanwhile, it may be suggested, there might be such co'nsequences in oversea markets as would be even less easy to overcome than injury to the producing system at home.) Finally, Mr Mulholland pointed to the certainty that any such action, though directed against the Government, would in fact be suffered by the consuming public, which would resent and resist it and, far from holding the Government responsible, make common cause with it. All this is wholly and obviously true. It is conclusive, by itself. But there is more, of equal weight. There is, for example, the fact that farmers cannot leave out of their policy the obligation they owe to Britain and the duty thqy owe to the rest of the world. If they begin to pursue any intention but that of producing all they can, shame will halt them in it. Again, farmers who are political realists must sooner or later grasp the fact that, if they adopt the methods of pressure groups, they will he com- 1 peting with groups much more proficient and much more ruthless in such methods and will surely get the worst of it. More, they will have thrown away their one long-run advantage. Pressure groups score their temporary successes, but they wear out public tolerance, both for the pressure groups' and for. the politicians! who submit to pressure. The farmers can afford to be patient. They cannot afford to join the wreckers.