POLITICAL TRENDS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 15, 18 July 1939, Page 8

POLITICAL TRENDS

FARMERS AND NATIONAL

PARTY

(To the Editor.) -,

Sir,-—The leading article which you published on Saturday night "What is Guaranteed?" should win for you the confidence and gratitude of the farming community. It. shows that you have a true appreciation of the position of the primary producers, and I venture to say that were the case for the farmers put over in Parliament by the Opposition with half the clarity and driving force displayed by you in your article there would be no talk of a Farmers' Party.

I am not giving away any secrets when I say that this matter was fully discussed at the Farmers' Union Conference held in Wellington last week, and there seems to be little doubt that within the next two or three months something definite will eventuate, furthermore, there is nothing of the Auckland Douglas Credit influence about it as was the case with the Country Party before. This move is sponsored by people from all parts of New Zealand. Many of them were Nationalists, and there must be reasons ior the present attitude. *'

Here are the reasons. It is recognised that the Opposition has the cause of the farmer at heart, but there is a general feeling that the Nationalists in the House are (for the most part) ineffective. They have the guns and the ammunition, but they have no knowledge of political strategy. The Labour Party gets away with it all;the time, and no matter how sound may be the case of the Opposition the latter members are always discredited. There is no cohesion and a situation is very rarely forcibly handled, while no really effective rejoinder is made to Government misrepresentation. Further, as Mr. Mulholland pointed out, there is not much confidence in some of the elements behind the Opposition—elements which have no sympathy with the farmer. The farmers, therefore, feel that they can do the job better themselves. The crowning thing was the recent attempt on the part of the Government to commandeer farm lands at Kuku. The farmers concerned had to fight the battle themselves. Surely when such a vital principle was at stake it would not have been too much to expect the National Party to have raised the matter in the House, even if it had had to go to the length of moving, an adjournment. But it did nothing and the farmers felt it very keenly. As it stands now the position is this: if the present parties in the House do not want a farmers' party, they had better pay more attention to the position of the farmer. The latter asks for no more than justice, and it is in the power of the Government to give him this. The Parliamentary section of the National Party would be well advised to cease being a cock-shy and make some endeavour to capture the confidence of the people as a whole. The section of the party behind the scenes outside of the House should get down to tin tacks and put at the head of affairs people with force and driving power- instead of making it a close corporation. A word to the wise is sufficient.—l am, etc., ' i SMALL FARMER. Hutt Valley, July 16, 1939.