FARMING IN ENGLAND

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 162, 5 April 1938, Page 10

FARMING IN ENGLAND

Influx To Cities A Serious

Problem

HOUSES AT 8/- A WEEK

, Most New Zealanders who go to England devote the majority of their time to seeing the gaiety and the bright lights of London. Not so Major 11. Westmacott, King Country agriculturist, who from the moment he landed in England buried himself in the English countryside, studying the problems and the progress of the English farmer. Major Westmacott, who returned to Wellington yesterday by the Awatea, said that the principal difficulty with, which the Home farmers were confronted was precisely the same as now being experienced in New Zealand — a dwindling population in the country districts. ' The influx to the cities was even more marked. The influences and attractions to young men to abandon the country life were many. The Government's policy of providing work on the roads, practically at the farmer’s gate, was an unsettling one. The Army and Navy were making a determined drive for recruits, stressing the aspect of mechanisation, likely to appeal to young meiu To make conditions more attractive i’or the farm labourers, landowners and county administrative authorities were doing all in their power to provide good homes for them, at moderate rental. The bouse being provided was an extremely good type of five-roomed cottage. In addition, the landowners were carrying out reconditioning of existing houses. It was generally agreed that the average rent of 8/- was too high, and a movement was afoot to reduce farm labourers’ rents to an ultimate level of 3/- a week. They were dealing, however, with a class of labourer who was accustomed before the war to obtain his home for as little as a shilling a week. Such men, said Major Westmacott, would be earning about 36/- a week, out of-which they had'to provide for themselves and their families. They earned also a good deal of overtime, however.

It was obvious that to be able to provide for the labourers in this way, the farmer must be able to make his place pay. This the Government was attempting to help him do. England was deeply concerned at the yearly diminution of her internally-produced food-supply, but the position was a difficult one. To aid the farmer was in some degree to iiit at Imperial trade. For instance, if a subsidy were placed on home-grown wheat, an outcry followed from the wheat belt of the Middle West of Canada. Similarly, a subsidy on meat or dairy produce would to some extent prejudice Australian and New Zealand exports.

English farmers had in the past made their places pay under very adverse circumstances. But they evinced no jealousy toward New Zealand. They simply felt that they would like to know exactly what was being done elsewhere. Nowhere had he encountered any hint of a threat to boycott New Zealand produce. Throughout the Old Country there was very goodwill toward this Dominion. Farming methods were being brought up to date in some ways. The English idea, however, was to make the farm support itself to a greater extent than in New Zealand. They relied to a greater extent on farmyard manure and lime and slag (han on the phosphates and chemical fertilisers used to such an extent in this country. They put back into the earth what they took out of it.