PRESS AND MINISTER

Greymouth Evening Star, 26 November 1926, Page 8

PRESS AND MINISTER

* AN AUCKLAND QUARREL (Special to “Star.”) AUCKLAND, .Nov. 25. The “New' Zealand Herald’’ followed the -Auckland “Star’s” suit in dealing editorially with Hon. A. D. McLeod’s outburst at Wellington, on the paucity of attention given by the Press to the Land Conference here last week. The “Herald” in the course of its leader says: “The Minister of Lands is rapidly qualifying for recognition as New Zealand’s chief pessimist. His experiences at the land policy conference held in Auckland during Royal Show r week have prompted him to express opinions in which he outdoes the worst he has ever said before in detraction of agricultural prospects in New Zealand to-day. There are plenty of other people prepared to be just as gloomy whenever the farming industry is mentioned. If they like to confess their own failure that is their affair. When however, a Minister of the Crown takes up the tale of woe in his official capacity and makes statements tantamount to a declaration that the country is far on the road to bankruptcy, if not already there, it is necessary to examine his utterances a little more closely, searching for motives and estimating probability of the consequences. The field of inquiry is narrowed because Mr. McLeod exhibits this pessimism only as Minister of Lands. As head of the Department of Industries and Commerce, he told a different story to the conference of Chambers of Commerce yesterday. There he was full of optimism. He virtually promised a favourable trade balance for the current year. New Zealand, he said, was a strong -and wealthy counttry. There was a period of depression at present, but if the difficulties were viewed in the right spirit, it everybody w’orked hard, they would

vanish and .all would be well. It may be left, for the Minister of Lands and the Minister of Industries and Commerce to reconcile these divergent opinions, but the fact that the same man holds them, and can express them almost in the same breath, gives a valuable clue to the reasons why he chooses to describe the farming industry as virtually bankrupt. Driven from defence to defence in the endeavour to justify his fixed determination not to energise his Department, and not to set it about doing the work most important to the future of New Zealand, the Minister talced the astounding stand of lining himself alongside these whose favourite slogan is “farming does not pay.” After a critfcal survey of Mr. McLeod’s policy, the article concludes: He should seek to understand the implications of what he says, instead of making reckless statements in public. If he will do that, his cheap gibes about city critics can be ignored. Impatient of criticism, he should understand that the best way to avoid it is not to deserve it. He should understand that he would not have to defend, himself so continually'if he showed a little activity instead of remaining sunk in inertia and pessimism.”