The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, MAY 29, 1912. POLITICS AND THE FARMER.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1452, 29 May 1912, Page 4

The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, MAY 29, 1912. POLITICS AND THE FARMER.

The present period of political transition ought to be regarded by the farmer as a time for considering his position. Until the growing wave of reform sentiment broke ,upon and smashed last December the political oligarchy that had for so many years successfully masqueraded under the name of "Liberalism," the farmer was not very keenly alive to the real trend of events. He saw anti-farmer principles crowding into the Statute Book and an increasing boldness in the anti-farmer section of the "Liberal" party, but he was inclined to think that after all the more sensible members of the party would call a halt before the anti-farmer movement entered upon an extreme stage. Whatever the farmer may have thought then, however, he has got to consider now that a political rearrangement is about to take place, in which, unless he is alert, his interests can easily suffer. The president of the Wellington Executive of the New Zealand Farmers' Union, Mr. J. G. Wilson, did well, therefore, in his address at the opening of the Conference in Palmerston yesterday, to give some time to a discussion of those Radical movements which regard the farmer as the enemy. These were, the Single Tax movement, Socialism and Syndicalism—things not naturally allied, nor possessed of anything in common save hostility to the man who owns and works his farm, but things that in New Zealand are either working, or ready to work, in concert. We have, for example, the leading spirit of the Single Tax movement in close and eager alliance with the United Labour party, the objective of which is avowedly Socialistic; and we.have within the last few days seen the United Labour party opening negotiations with the syndicalist Federation of Labour.

The necessary limits of his address restricted Mr. Wilson to a very brief statement of the national folly of these anti-farmer forces, but farmers generally are unlikely to miss seeing the point that they must present a united front to their enemies. It is a striking commentary on "Liberalism," which began with a land policy and which enjoyed almost unrestricted opportunities for twenty years without a break to carry out its wishes, that it has failed all round, and in nothing so much as in going to its funeral, leaving behind it a majority of city dwellers in a country at least four-fifths of whose exports are derived from rural industry. This is due, of course,,to tho conjunction of reckless borrowing with unprincipled government. The result, as it concerns the farmer just now, is a fair]v large section of irresponsible city Radicals, who are hav. ing the time of their lives in organis-.

ing, thoughtless people to march along lines which everybody with any '•knowledge of history knows have been fallowed to disaster again and Again in many countries throughout all 'the ages. The common character Of the Single Taxer, the Socialist, and the Syndicalist is a desire that the other fellow snail pay the taxes which they will spend in racing to national ruin. The injustices of the single tax doctrine were clearly pointed out by Mr. Wii.son; and the injustice of the thing is so obvious, and will be so effective an argument, that it is_ unnecessary to deal with the impolicy of it. The fallacy at the root of the single tax idea—namely, that "the State" creates all value and the individual nothing—is a very absurd and very obvious one: but it is at the root, if you dig deep enough, of every shoot of fiscal RadiThe one virtue of the downright single taxer is his riownrightness: he is honest in his admission that the owner of land, whether he is a small grower of potatoes or wheat or the holder of large, unkindly tracts that would be almost as useless as the South Pole if they did not feed sheep, must contribute all the revenue.. He is. less an enemy than the man who, repudiating adherence to Henry George, reaches little by little, or more and more, through special anti-agrarian restrictions and taxes, for the throat of the national wealth-producer, the farmer. All of this_ Mr. Wilson merely hinted at. His' criticism of Socialism, we most firmly believe, is a slaying of the slain; and the same can be said of his references to Syndicalism. We may return on another occasion to his question why, if the Syndicalists really were honest, they did not give proof of their faith in a practical way. The farmer must realise that he is threatened. In the past he has been gradually growing uneasy, as the elections of 1908 and 1911 showed, at the tendency of ''Liberalism." Prior to 1908, misled by the label of the dominant party, he supported, in many electorates, the Ministerialist candidate. He did not realise that his Ministerialist representative was simply a counter in the game played by the "Liberal" bosses. At the present time the farming community is being wooed by a Prime Minister who, whatever his own opinions may be, has deliberately chosen as his colleagues men who throughout their political lives have fought hard against the interests of the man on the land. The farmer has been kicked for a good many years, and he has' really deserved his kicking: ho can only blame himself for not realising how his true interests were being attacked. He has no excuse for not seeing now that he should pay no attention to the fair words and unctuous professions of sympathy that may come to him from those, or from the chieftains of those, who have never hidden their anxiety to bleed the farmer white for the benefit of the city Radicals who would starve but for the men who till the soil.