FARMERS AND THE NATION.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1506, 31 July 1912, Page 4

FARMERS AND THE NATION.

We are accustomed to look for something interesting from Me. J. G. Wilson in his annual addresses, as President, to the conferences of the New Zealand Farmers' Union. His_ address to the Conference now sitting in Wellington is upon the whole the best of the series: it is an admirablo statement of the farmer's attitude, of the position of the Union, of t-he i state as well as the status of agriculture, and of the enormous importance of tho agriculturalist in our social scheme. It is a cheering account that Mr. Wilson gives of the growth of the agricultural industry, and especially of the dairying side of it; and to those town-dwellers who realise their dependence upon the primary producer it will bo pleasing news that in the opinion of so good a judge as Mn. Wilson the real "heart of tho country" is upon the whole really very sound. No doubt to those city politicians who believe (and act up to their belief) that they can easily jise the farmer for the furtherance of the game they are playing upon tho weaker-headed of tne urban public, tho President's address will be anything but pleasing. They will resent his recurrent allusions to. the national necessity for giving the farmer fair play, but they will resent still more the solid setting of his arguments. Thus, in discussing the variations of our export figures, Mr. Wilson quite simply points out what really make up our exports, which everyone, after the stringency of 1908-9, knows are tho vital factors in the Dominion's prosperity or adversity. The country lives upon its primary industries. And his commentary is profound and true:

What does nil this point to? Ib signifirnnro is that it is not governments nor members of Parliament who fin pull a country out. of financial stringency, but the farmer? and rofrtornlist?, "

He believoG that the farmcrß and naS'

Moralists-!' ca ,]i and will bring the exports b 3 to the high water mark," but the l\vn l(; r will need encouragement —no' the kind of encouragement whifo consists in placing fresh burdens ujon him, or in the taxation of wlat the soft-handed city agitator cajs "unearned increment," but that encouragement, which "will give every farmer security of tenure and_ secjrity for his earnings." It is idle for Mr. Wilson, as he indeed admits, to expect that the agitator in the city will regard agricultural prosperity as national prosperity: but the time, we are convinced, has ended when there was a hearing for the anti-farmer demaThere is every reason to behove that New Zealand can look forward to a long and healthy era of sanity and honesty, in which progress will be shown to have no de pendence upon "class" legislation and violent Eadical programmes. We arc glad to note that Mr. Wilson lays much emphasis upon the value of agricultural education and of immigration. The Wahd Government was always' very cold towards immigration proposals: it Only did enough to ; escape the charge that it did absolutely nothing at all. The new Government must encourage immigration, but it. will fail of its trust if it docs not shape its policy towards providing that the agricultural workers who may come to our country shall in due course settlo upon land of their own. In the past the organs of the agitators, which have also been the organs of the so-called "Liberal" Ministries, never lost an opportunity to suggest that the Farmers' Union was a political party organisation. There lias never been any truth in the charge, although it is quite true that the Union lias always been ready to fight any party that'deliberately adopted as an article of faith hostility to agrarian interests. The recent clearing of tho political atmosphere, resulting from the defeat and disintegration of the Spoils Party, left Mk. Wilson ample rdom to discuss the political situation. as it affected farmers. He contented himself, however, with some brief observations. Few people will suggest that lie has inferred too much lrom the fact-ra "most significant" fact, he called it—that when the despairing "Liberal'', party had to choose a new leader, it had to choose a freeholder. "Is it not fair to assume," he asks, after referring to the supporters of the ! new Government, that our freehold campaign has been successful, although it still requires an Act of Parliament to make it completely so?" Mr. Wilson is modest in thus suggesting by an interrogative that the country, weary of the experiments of an opportunist Government, has at last resolved to give its government into the hands of those who, forced to embrace sound national policy in all essential things; were naturally attached to the optional freehold. This is a hopeful time for the farmer, and so a hopeful time for the nation; and the Farmers' Union, and its President, deserve hie praise for having steadily persisted in their care for the farmers' cause. It will bo the duty of the Union to keep the awakened farmer politically awake, and it cannot better serve the nation than by doing this.