"POWER IN THE COMMUNITY"

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 48, 25 August 1921, Page 9

"POWER IN THE COMMUNITY"

"The Farmers' Union has a. velry strong hold on New Zealand as a. whole, and it is becoming a very considerable power in the.community." These views were expressed by Mr. W. J. Poison, of Fordell, president of the New Zealand Farmers' Union, when addressing a conference of primary producers in Wellington yesterday afternoon. -, Mr. Poison; said that the Farmers' Union in the past had not mado that progress which it should have made. At the present time, however, it was making very considerable strides. The North Island membership was very large, and had increased 25 pen- cent, last year, and the organisation was becoming very powerful. The union was also advancing in the South Island 1, andl he could assure his hearers that it was going to make very much greater strides there than it had done in the past. "We are proposing to bring before the farmers generally a very fine constructive co-operative programme which we have in view, and which we hope to get the farmers very generally to adopt," added 'Mr. Poison "It is truft that in the past we have lacked 'punch,' particularly in the South, but I assure you that we are going to get that 'punch,' arid that we are going to improve the Farmers' Union very materially. I look upon tho Fanners' Union as the proper political organisation of the farmer, but I don't want you to confuse politics and party politics. I am speaking of politics in trig broader sense. It is the proper organisation for farmers' politics." Mr. Poison said he was pleading for a little further trial of tlja Farmers' Union, especially as. far as the South Island was concerned. He believed that in twelve months' time they would be able to prove to those in the South that they had more- in common with the union than they thought. He spoke as a [airly representative North Island sheepowner, and he did not like to feel that there was antipathy on the pa-rt of his fellow-sheepowners with tbose\ who were members of the Farmers' Union. There was no reason why adl sheepowners should not be members of the Farmers' Union, in the same way that all dairyman should be members of the Union. The Fanners' Union would be the proper political mouthpiece for both' of them.