N.Z. “walking in sleep”

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33676, 28 October 1974, Page 15

N.Z. “walking in sleep”

New Zealanders needed! Ito develop the will to change their attitudes to act and to change their attitudes towards their environment before it was too late, said Mr H. A. Morton, a senior lecturer in history at the University of Otago. Mr Morton, guest speaker at the Kennedy memorial lecture organised by the Canterbury Mountaineering Club, said that New Zealand was “walking in a sleep.” Little notice was being taken of the effects of in-i dustrialisation on overseas’ countries, he said. It was at present fashion-! able to talk about the en-’ vironment, but to help solve; the problems related to it, 1 support had to come from all sections of the community — business, industry, and agriculture. There were two major policy areas that should be ■ examined, said Mr Morton. : The first was the greater I agricultural production demanded of each farmer and ; the depopulation of the rural area. The second was the “refusal” to examine the problems resulting from the growth of cities. Mr Morton said that before he came to New Zealand from Canada he was a farmer there. He recently returned

Ito Canada and was disImayed at what he saw. Driving past wheat fields up to three miles long a person would see no birds and Tew beasts or men. It was like a “blighted countryside”; — and it was not as though; the farm owners were; wealthy men, he said. “A Canterbury shepherd would be better off in general than the owners of such farms,” Mr Morton said. The reason for the lack of wealth lay in paying the farmer for each unit he produced, a problem keenly felt in New Zealand at the moment, he said. The New Zealand farmer was paid by The unit by overseas buyers of wool and meat — and'the ; price of these had dropped. ■ ■ To get the same income.) I the farmer had, for example,' Ito spend more time rearing more ewes. This meant less time spent on the general upkeep of the farm. The visual effect could be noticed by the passing -motorist. In Manitoba, the govern-1 ment was trying to come to grips with the problem by buying back land and employing farmers on a salary basis, he said. Mr Morton also spoke) about the trend of political) power increasing in the urban areas and the need to find what he said was more jobs in cities for people from the rural areas. “How many M.P.s would vote against sending industry’ away, for example?” he said.) To send it away might be good for the social environ-; ment.

In this area, people should examine long-term effects rather than short-term ones. ) People were trying to have iit both ways, “but can a per- : son have industry as well as [a clean environment, or cities las well as individuality?” Mr Morton said. It was still not too late, he said, for New Zealanders “to see and act in time.” The mistake must not be made of confusing economic efficiency with social efficiency. What New Zealand wanted, said Mr Morton, was a balanced growth, to stop rural depopulation and to stop urban growth. New Zealanders needed strong leadership, and must develop the will to change their attitudes. This was helped by an open mind.