WHO ARE THE PRODUCERS?

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 115, 17 May 1930, Page 8

WHO ARE THE PRODUCERS?

In advocating joint development of rural and urban industries His Excellency the Governor-General has made an appeal which should have a wide response. We can cordially agree that prosperity for secondary industries should not be accompanied by depletion of the country population. Primary production is at present, and must be for many years to come, the basis of Dominion industry. As it is fostered, so will the field for secondary industries be extended, and with less risk of artificiality than if the extension is sought through indiscriminate high protection. This does not rule out all protection. It is rather a warning to ardent supporters of manufactures not to neglect other and less controversial means of attaining the end they desire. But the hand-in-hand development which His Excellency hopes to see is attainable only through reciprocal goodwill and mutual willingness in town and country to respect each other's interests. In both town and country there, is room for improvement in this respect. If townspeople at times make claims which appear unfair to primary producers the latter are also provocative on occasions. Only the other day, for example, reference was made to the frequency with which the terra "production" is misapplied in such a way as to suggest that the actual land workers are responsible for the whole of the farm products which comprise the great bulk of our exports. It is one thing to say that primary products constitute 95 per cent, of our exports and it is quite another to say that the farmers produce 95 per cent, of the wealth, and that each farmer is carrying three other people on his back. All those who render useful service are helping the farmer and assisting to increase his output. They are producing their share of the national wealth. Without the banker, the railwayman, the watersider, the manufacturer, and the shopkeeper, production would be not only; prim-

ary, but primitive. In some directions there may be; redundancy of service. In transport, we believe this is most marked, but if the farmer is penalised for that (by rates, taxes, and direct charges) he is to blame also for permitting and even encouraging it. If there were a better understanding of all the factors entering into production, there would be less of such expensive and wasteful effort.