Grey River Argus MONDAY, January 9, 1928. WHERE N.Z. IS SLIPPING BACK.

Grey River Argus, 9 January 1928, Page 4

Grey River Argus MONDAY, January 9, 1928. WHERE N.Z. IS SLIPPING BACK.

In lhe f;ie of the Tory criticism of Labour’s policy to fetch the land into greater use, many people arc increasingly at a loss to reconcile the decrease in the number of persons employed on farms with the nominal classification of nine out of ten immigrants as farm workers. The decline in the number of employees is no longer to be regarded as a temporary or accidental process for it has been steady since 1923, so Ihal the present year finds the total lower than it was in 1921. The cause of this regrettable anil dangerous tendency is to be found undoubtedly in t]ie absence of a progressive land policy. The Government is failing lamentably to meet the needs of the situation. It has been doing litle or nothing to put settlers on the land. Its pretensions at the subdivision of large holdings have been an utter fiasco. The principle upon which the Government professes to eater for the Dominion's economic welfare is that the country is essentially a farming one, and the demand for a more enlightened policy in the matter of secondary industry is met by the plea that primary production must have prior consideration, and that New Zealand depends mainly for its existence upon- its exports. In the face of that claim, it is surely the height of inconsistency for an administration to countenance the gradual decline of primary production which must be the inevitable result of the steady decline, in the number of woi'kers engaged in such production. Taking the past seven or eight years, we find that on agricultural holdings the number of persons employed each year has been as follows 1921-22 18,409; 1922-23, 18,417; 1923-24, 14,832; 1924-25, 13.975; 1925-26, 13,693; and 1926-27, 13,373, which is the lowest total for more than a decade, to go back no further. On dairying holdings there were 78,564 persons employed in 1922-23; 76,823 in 1923-24; 76,976 in 192425; 73,370 in 1925-26, and 69,450 in 1926-27. On pastoral holdings in 1923-24, there were employed 52,044 persons ; in 1924-25, 51,791; in 1925-26 there were 50,388; and in 1926-27, there were 49,625. Thus the decline in all three classes of holdings has in the past four years been general and sustained. The point also must be remembered that the population of the Dominion during the same period has considerably increased, so that bad as the decline would be were population not thus growing, it is far more of a menace

when the population is increasing yearly by a larger number. The bislory ol’ older countries is Iragic where 1 the land has been depopulated and the room of human beings is given up to boasts, birds, ami vegetation that is scarcely any more ornamental than it is useful. A good deal of our own land is reverting to a comparatively non-productive state, whereas poverty and unemployment are on I he increase in every direction The Government <-.an find nothing Io exercise its wits just now except 11k 1 sol back which it has sustained in the matter of the liquor question, ■whilst the call for a land policy is more insistent every day. All that this neglect of land settlement is going to mean to New Zealand may take time to show, but it must be a serious setback which it will reveal in the near future. It is unfortunate that, while Ihe urban dwellers mostly are apathetic in the matter, the great majority of land holders think they have an interest in seeing areas neglected and production reduced. The sooner the Dominion is ruled by a Government which will foster closer settlement and greater pastoral and agricultural production the better will it be able to cope with its increasing problems of population and finance.