SMALL FARMERS

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 72, 25 March 1926, Page 6

SMALL FARMERS

"BACKBONE OF THE COUNTRY"

THE GOVERNMENT'S HELP

SPEECH BY MINISTER OF

AGRICULTURE.

Stating that his Ideal was that New Zealand should be a land for small farmers, the Minister of Agriculture (the Hon. 0. J. Haw-1 ken), in an address to nearby farmers last, evening, dealt fully with tho problems now facing the Dominion. , | The Minister stated that there had | been a good deal of controversy about Government interference ln business, but if that interference would enable those engaged to carry on business more successfully, the Government was quite entitled to interfere, or to put it in a better way, to help. He was afraid that those who talked so much about Government interference with business sometimes did not quite understand how the Government did interfere and try to help in all business. He hardly knew i: business in which the Government did not try to help. If they took all the secondary industries of any importance in New Zealand, the Government came to their aid with subsidies and bounties and through the Customs, which he thought was sometimes forgotten. The Government certainly did try in every way to help the farmers still more. His ideal was that New Zealand should be a land for small farmers, and in order to bring that about they should do a great deal more in training, teaching, and in demonstrating to farmers how they should farm. THE DRIFT TO THE TOWNS. The Minister said that unfortunately people were not sticking to the land as they used to do, for they were continually drifting into the towns, and if they could only induce the people to get back to the country, make comfortable homes, and bring up their children there, it would be better for the nation as a whole. But if they wanted the people to live in the country they must make it more attractive for the women. A great deal could be done to make the country more attractive to the. women. Motor-ears, quick transport, and telephones had been brought into service, but he thought it should be made still more attractive, for a country population of small farmers would be tho backbone in reality of the Dominion. GOOD HOMES ESSENTIAL. He had been told by those who had been to, Denmark how comfortable the people were upon their farms. Although the land was extremely poor, the holdings small, and the climate rigorous, the standard of comfort was higher than in New Zealand. It was hard to understand, but it was because the people were settled down, and had homes of their own. When history was written the present Government would be commended for haying provided more homes for the. people' than any previous Government. It was its ideal to provide the' people' with comfortable homes, and he thought tho Goverh--1 ment had strained its resources, to do it. It had done as-much as anyone [ could have" expected it to do in provid- | ing homes for the people, not only in i the towns but in the country. They did I not want rent-payers if they could help it. They wanted people to own their own homes, people who would live in j their own-homes or on their own farms, not necessarily having a lot of money to spend, but really prosperous. THE IDEA BEHIND CONTROL.. "We have never been in favour of big holdings, and we are not in favour of big men," declared the Minister in conclusion. "We would rather see a community of the smaller people reasonably well off. I believe the object of most Governments, and particularly this Government, is to see wealth distributed ■ right down through the mass of the people. We don't want to see the wealth in a few hands. The growth of Socialism so often referred to is not to be combated by knocking it on the head, for behind it there are the wants of the people. Tnese are movements you can't stem except by providing .the alternative, and the Government's object is to provide that alternative. We give the machine to the farmers :to open'-tho way to big business t and we don't want the profits to' accrue to a few. We want the profitß to be,distributed back amongst the farmers, That is the idea behind a lot of the control legislation of the Government, and when we hear people talking as they do I think they have not troubled to study the objective of this legislation."