Problems of the Farmer

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 68, 13 December 1933, Page 11

Problems of the Farmer

Sir, —“True Britisher” starts his letter with mild personal' abuse. I take this opportunity of reminding him that there are other and slightly larger communities on the world than ours. I have no quarrel at all with the working farmer, as a farmer or as a class, but the facts must be faced that in New Zealand, owing largely to State assistance during the last 30 years instead of the pioneer farmer we have had land speculators, hence the hign prices of land and consequently the high productive costs. As to farming being a part-time occupation. Henry Ford, who employs something like a quarter of a million workers, has demonstrated that farming is a parttime occupation. The only reason tor growing crops, for mining, for manufacturing is that people may eat. keep warm, have clothes to wear, and articles to use. There is no other possible reason, ret that reason is forced into the background, and we have the spectacle of operations carried on, not to the end of service, but to the end of money-making, and this because we have evolved a system of money that, instead of being a convenient means of exchange is at times it a barrier, to exchange. The time nature takes to produce a crop is so much greater than that required for the human contribution of scratching the soil, planting the seed, and harvesting the crop. Industry and farming should be complimentary; , they belong together, not apart. ■ My contention was not that New Zealand was not a primary producing country, but rather that owing largely to circumstances, we had placed all our eggs one basket, and that now the market in Britain is failing us. it is useless to try to bolster up a false position. You cannot farm with borrowed money, and what I should like to convey is that if an industry is in need of money through bad management, the thing, to do is to get into the job and correct this trouble from the inside, and not poultice it with money from the outside. —I am. etc., JOHN BULL. Wellington, December 7.