"POTATO POLITICS"

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 82, 5 April 1924, Page 6

"POTATO POLITICS"

Potato farmers of Canterbury a few days ago furnished a striking example of the sort of economicmyopia that afflicts a large number of people, of this country. Seizing the opportunity of the Prime Minister being in Christclmrch, they presented to him a long bill of grievances; the' chief item in which was Australian competition in the local market. Some .of the speakers showed extraordinary ignorance of what is being done by fel-low-producers, the dairy farmers and meat exporters, through their ' Control- Boards ; others seemed to know nothing of the fact that whereas New Zealand imported last year under the reciprocity! tariff Australian produce worth i £362,434, the Commonwealth imported £1,464,921 of produce of New Zealand. The "poor returned soldier" who had gone in for potato-growing was duly'paraded and described as -'not having a fair spin," in fact, being "crippled" by Australian competition!* Much-was made, of-the possibility of disease being introduced into New Zealand by importing potatoes from Australia, but is there no disease in New Zealand? Housekeepers during the past few weeks can tell a different story, "can tell of the great waste,, and therefore expense, due to this cause, and that with potatoes' retailing at 2d per pound.

If the potato farmers who waited on the Prime Minister had been open and. above board they would have told him what was their real object in asking-for an embargo— viz., that they might have - the New Zealand market entirely to themselves,' and that they should be helped by .Order-in-Council to. maintain a hold on the supplies of one oi the most important foodstuffs of the country. They were not so frank on that point as they were upon, Mr. Massey's want of sympathy for themselves as a class. Two political^ friends,Hhey said, they had counted on as staunch for special potato interests in Parliament; and one of them, Mr. Massey, had "turned them down." It will be news to many people, as.no doubt it was to himself, that any one section of producers had special friends at court' in the Legislature.- It is difficult, on reading, the reports of this meeting of potato-grpwers with the Prime Minister of this Dominion, not to feel that some producers, at any rate, are convinced that with them lies the secret ot good government. Indeed, a potato-grower, when asked by the Prime* Minister if he could run the country better than it is being run at present, aaid that personally he believed he could. Here, then, is a potential potato' premier—if the alliterative title will be forgiven. What' the potato farmers, what niany^ other people in the cities as well as in the country appear to need is enlightenment upon the fact that it is.not potato politics, dairy politics, wheat politics, meat politics, or any other sectional politics, that- count, but the best way to, administer the business of the country in the best interests of the people as a w.hole. Mr. Nos.worthy has had experience enough ot the difficulty of trying to please wheat-growers and keeping on good terms with poultry-men crying for cheap fowl-feed; ' But the times are fraught with too many really grave problems that "potato politids". have no chance of solving. They are bad politics at any. time, but suicidal" in these complex days. The sooner those who^place sectional-interests first every time and all the time before the interests of the whole realise this fact, the better for themselves and everyone else.