LEADERSHIP WANTED

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 230, 24 June 1943, Page 4

LEADERSHIP WANTED

Royal Agricultural Society’s Work PRESIDENT POINTS WAYS If the Royal Agricultural Society did not stand for something bigger in the life of New Zealand than the conducting of the Royal show it might as well go but of existence, said the president of the society, Mr. L. J. Wild, at its annual meeting in Wellington yesterday. If

farmers expected to furnish leadership in farming affairs, rather than leave the Department of Agriculture to lead, the agricultural and pastoral associations and the Royal society were the bodies to give that leadership. During his term as president he had strenuously advocated that the society widen its activities, lie said. Too much time at its annual conferences had had to be given to subjects relating to the Royal Show, but the subject which had taken up most time would soon be out of the way. An example of the wider subjects the society should deal with was artificial insemination. A matter of that sort, affecting livestock breeders generally, must be considered oil a national basis and not by breed soceities alone. Then there were matters of livestock improvement, the broad subject of agricultural education, afforestation and soil erosion. ' The mere fact that war conditions precluded the holding of Royal shows should not preclude the society having live issues. Up and down the country, societies, merely because they could not hold shows, had gone into recess. The A. and P, societies would find in their constitutions objectives other than the running of shows. In some quarters it was even' thought that the running of the Royal show was the only object of the Royal society. He had not received much encouragement for his endeavours to raise new issues.

Somehow the enlightened farmers ot New Zealand were not throwing up from among themselves the leadership that had been in the industry 30 or 4-0 years ago, and they were leaving it more and more to departments of State to la.v down policies. He was not saying that it was wrong to leave that to the Slate, but farmers could not have it both ways. They could not criticise the State for exercising dictatorial powers if they did not take the lead themselves. The Farmers’ Union existed to bring about the best possible conditions for fanners as farmers, but A. and P. societies were bodies of men interested in advancing agricultural interests in (lie broadest possible way. Mr. J. Al. James, Maslerton, said the president’s remarks-were a rebuke, but a deserved one.