The Grey River Argus TUESDAY, July 30, 1940. FUTURE OF NEW ZEALAND.

Grey River Argus, 30 July 1940, Page 6

The Grey River Argus TUESDAY, July 30, 1940. FUTURE OF NEW ZEALAND.

Though land utilistaion was his primary, and State rather than private initiative his secondart - theme yesterday, the Hon. R. Semple made a timely allusion to Dominion defence when he referred- to our need of population. Even with a victory over the dictatorships, New Zealand must in future shoulder a far greater defence responsibility. Money as well as men must be found, lor Britain will be unable to. undertake through the Navy the same safeguard as she hitherto had promised. If we do not ourselves defend the country, Air Semple says, it will be defende 1 by some one else, and our only hope is a far greater population, which means far greater production. This can come mainly from the land alone, as manufacturing, however now growing and later destined to do so more still, will remain secondary. In any case, apart from lack of metals and other resources for secondary industry, New Zealand has such a natural advantage in climate, and so much territory yet unexploited, that land development is the obvious prelude to .increasing population. Air Semple insists that some of the unused or partly used country needs draining and more needs irrigation. That has been evident ever since those now on the land began to complain that all the best of it had already been taken up. Some, indeed, have said a limit to farm expansion was in sight, justifying the Minister of Public Works in his admonition against national defeatism. By the use of modern machinery his Department has demonstrated how quickly waste land can be rendered productive, while isolat ed areas are being opened up with road and railway extension. It is thus manifest that the State can play a yet bigger part in enabling tllo country 1?o carrysuch an increase of population as its defence immediately demands. If past experience is a guide, it would be futile to rely on private initiative to meet that imperative call. At the same time there is another side to the case, one where the State can only indirectly exert its influence, by im- ' proving the lot especially of the family. Land is an essential of national weal, but not the first essential. The child comes first. With all of its material development, its per capita food export in excess of any other country, New Zealand by - comparison with loss favourably situated peoples like the Japanese is a dying race. The defeat of France has been duo to that disease. Tier future depends upon ending': the evil course which for a century and a-half has seen her human crop dwindle while the products of her lands and factories continued to increase. Town life has in most countries led eventually to the same thing. Therefore a new orientation of our public works policy, calculated less to rear urban structures and congest population than to populate the countryside is a prudent course. War taxation is declared now' to bear adversely on the family, though there is a proviso to avert this in any very severe form , but care

must be taken that it shall not do so in any form. Before the war it was hard to induce public interest in the idea of family conservation. To-day considerations merely of defence, rather than any more altruistic ends, are calculated to favour the idea as never before. There may be a post-war current of migration to 1 these new countries. Preparations now to assimilate such people arc certainly advisable. Yet the surest safeguard is that of settling the largest possible proportion of New Zealanders on the land. Local bodies have so far scarcely responded to the offer of means to increase rural housing- It ought, howevci. to be the counterpart of land development. The Government may therefore have again to step in and give a lead also in that direction. '