USING HILL COUNTRY

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 15, 19 January 1939, Page 10

USING HILL COUNTRY

The problem of deteriorated land which a deputation of the New Zealand Farmers' Union and the New Zealand Sheepowner.s' Federation placed before the Prime Minister yesterday is not, as we have already pointed out, confined to this Dominion. It is a world-wide problem., The "dust-bowls" in the prairie regions' of North America and the back country of Australia, erosion on a wide scale in the United States and on a smaller scale in New Zealand, impoverishment of the soil generally in Britain and elsewhere, are different aspects of the same problem. While the causes may vary, it is common belief that they are due in the main to unscientific handling of the surface soil and improvident farming, a neglect to replace in the soil what has been taken out, and a failure to restore some of the natural cover on steep denuded surfaces, leading to erosion and the loss of fertility. The problem of erosion is a serious one in itself, apart from the deterioration of the land, because of its effect on the drainage of inland basins and. the production ,of disastrous floods. New Zealand has suffered with increasing severity, as time goes on, from the accumulated results of excessive deforestation, and the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Semple) announced this week that Cabinet had given him authority to draft a Bill to deal with& river erosion. This, according to the Minister, will involve national control over all rivers threatening to destroy land, homes, and highways. The Esk Valley, in Hawke's Bay, is an example of the conditions to which Mr. Semple referred when he emphasised the magnitude of the job before the country.

The deterioration which yesterday's deputation asked the Government to investigate is more limited in scope. In putting the case, the president of the Farmers' *Union (Mr. Mulholland) referred particularly to second- and third-class sheep country, which, he said, was steadily going out of production and "a complete, impartial, and authoritative inquiry" was sought, he said, "into the factors affecting.the farmers' ability to maintain this land in a productive state." One important factor stressed was the cost of maintaining productive power. If expenditure on this was reduced, he argued, the annual return from the land would be reduced and also the power of the land to make a return. It seems quite clear at the outset that the problem is largely one of prices and costs. If the margin between the monetary return and the cost of producing that return becomes narrower and narrower, the time will arrive when the margin will disappear, and it will not "pay" to use such land for productive purposes. The difficulty with New Zealand is that so much of the country is high and broken and of inferior quality—"what is known as second- and third-class sheep country," Mr. Mulholland said. The fate of this class of country does directly concern the general productivity of New Zealand, particularly the production of wool, one of the main staple exports on which the Dominion depends for the maintenance of. sterling funds in London. The problem is therefore a vital one. The determining factor is the cost of production and this has undoubtedly increased, as a member of the' deputation pointed out, without a corresponding increase in the price of wool. It is in the main an economic problem and the Minister of Labour (Mr. Webb) mentioned an increase in the subsidy on farm development work as a help. This hardly touches the fundamental character of the problem, which fully merits the searching inquiry the deputation desired.