Farmers’ rights supported

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33933, 28 August 1975, Page 10

Farmers’ rights supported

(From Our Otrn Reporter) WELLINGTON. The rights of farm people to an effective community life, with access as nearly as possible equivalent to what others had. was in the economic and political interest of all New Zealanders, the senior lecturer in history at the University of Otago (Mr H. A. Morton) told the convention of the Institute of Agricultural Science in Wellington.

! The economic interests arose because it was from s total agricultural productions • that raw material and other 'import needs were met. and , the political interest because lin any democratic system it was vital to have virile and; 'active countervailing forces. “Reasoned debate is the enemy of demagoguery and acceptable change results as; directly from a conserving' iforce (stable rural commun--ity) as from and impinging force (unable urban com-; ■munity),” he said. New Zealand needed a . "conserving" force because,, u<tb Britain, it did not :

rhave state governments to i act as countervailing forces l such as were in Canada, the, . United States and Australia, i Any industry required a: Idedicated work force as well, i as a skilled one, and New, : Zealand agriculture was for-: lunate enough to possess! .this. ; “If we allow it to decline! I into an aged and narrow i; group, the sorry product of! ;■ negative selection, lack of ■choice and dogged endur- ; ance. then the cost of re-, building will be many times - 'higher than any scheme to i retain people on the land . would have been," said Mr ■Morton. i