The Grey River Argus FRIDAY, July 20, 1945. THE FARMER’S FRIENDS.

Grey River Argus, 20 July 1945, Page 4

The Grey River Argus FRIDAY, July 20, 1945. THE FARMER’S FRIENDS.

How many or how few working farmers have been bitten by the bug of political agitation is doubtful, but it certainly has infected certain heads of the Farmers’ Union. The last shreds of camouflage of Tory tutelage have now been ripped away from their particular attitude. They aim _ to range the. men on the land behind those interests whose desire is still to preserve for private finance capitalists the manipulation of the credit of the nation. It is, however, hard to believe that the smaller farmers have forgotten who came to their rescue when neither private bankers nor nationalist politicians offered them anything except the cold shoulder of expropriation. Before there' was a guarantee of a market with payable prices for primary produce, and before many primary producers had even decent access to any sort of a market at all, when, indeed, four out of five farmers were by the head of the Government reckoned to be bankrupt, there was a hopeless outlook, and no spirit whatever in the rural population. If there is a different spirit to-day, Ihc source of it undoubtedly has been the helpful measures of the Government during the past decade. An illustration that might be mentioned, one of the latest, was that which only yesterday occurred, and which happens to have been in this particular electorate. A lifetime ago, a party of migrants set out for a lonely outpost of Westland, not far from the border of Otago. The idea was to form a farming settlement down at Jackson’s Bay, but neither their, nor during a. period of more than half a century afterwards, was there any idea on the part of those directing the State to overcome the extreme isolation of that region of pastoral and forest resources. The consequence was the dissipation of the early- settlement, and until the advent of the Labour Government, those settlers who did endeavour to utilise the far south of AVestla’nd were left almost entirely to their own resources. The tyast ten years have seen wonderful roacling development in AVestldnd, with facilities for rapid transport beyond the Glacial region, bil| it is fair to say that none of theke improvements had been as significant of future

progress as the event which yesterday was to be recorded only a mile distant from the potentially important port of Jackson’s Bay. This was the- linking up of the Main South jtoad. with that con structed from the Bay, which will therefore be in .due course enabled to afford an outlet and inlet for a wide district, and therefore must facilitate development, both in settlement and in the utilisation of forest and mineral, as well as pastoral resources. It is utter nonsense for such as possess large holdings, now yielding rich ■ returns, to contend that the Government opening up- country in the manner that far South Westland is being opened up, lias at heart anything but the best interests of th-e men on the land. It is not agitation against wages readjustment, banking reform, or electoral reform which is going to better the working farmer. Our returning servicemen realise that as settlers their only hope is the determination of the Government to see that they all obtain a square deal, and are not placed in the strait-jacket of the mortgage-hold. In vain could they count upon private finance capitalists so using the national credit as to sustain them when credit might be most needed. The farmers of FarSouth Westland would have remained outlanders only that the Labour Government determined that their isolation had lasted long enough, and that the time had come for closer settlement. It is therefore a regrettable vagary if those claiming to lead farmers generally are disposed to ally the industry with political interests whose object is not to increase the means of existence, but to exploit such as already exist.