THE Hauraki Plains Gazette With which is Incorporated THE OHINEMURI GAZETTE MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, FRIDAY “Public Service” MONDAY, MAY 31, 1948 FOOD AND INDUSTRY

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 57, Issue 4000, 31 May 1948, Page 4

THE Hauraki Plains Gazette With which is Incorporated THE OHINEMURI GAZETTE MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, FRIDAY “Public Service” MONDAY, MAY 31, 1948 FOOD AND INDUSTRY

A forceful attack upon what he terms the “ hazy and crazy ” economics of the Dominion has been made by Mr A. P. O’Shea, general secretary of the Federated Farmers, and it is intriguing to note that many of his sentiments could have been expressed just as easily by Mr F. P. Walsh, secretary of the New Zealand Seamen’s Union and one of the advocates of an economy built upon greater production. Mr O’Shea in a striking phrase said: “The people of New Zealand appear to prefer cosmetics to clothes, and horse racing to housing, food and fuel.” That is a generalisation and generalisations often have a way of saying much and meaning little. This critic, however, is on sound ground when he declares that energies are being directed to leisurely, unprofitable industry at the expense of grass- ? land farming, for which New • Zealand is better suited by Nature than possibly any other country in the world. There is an international background to this criticism that should be emphasised. A sincere and independent world food ex- ' pert, Sir John Boyd-Orr, declared recently that no problem was more urgent or vital than that of i the declining ability of the world to feed itself adequately. The , economic wastage both of war and of the threat of war and the decreased energy of the foodproducing countries are the basis of the fear of Sir John Boyd-Orr that a tragic breakdown will occur and that civilisation will succumb not to the atom bomb but to mass starvation. So concerned is he at his scientific conclusions and the tardiness of international organisations to act that he has withdrawn from the U.N.O. food bureau so as to devote his whole time and energy to warning the food producers of their responsibility. Tianslated into cold currency this warning means that New Zealand could not make a better investment than to increase her food production — the days of quotas, low prices and satisfied demand are over. There is. however, another and more important consideration, and that is the responsibility New Zealand owes to humanity and orderly civilisation to produce food tQ the limit of her powers. Mr O’Shea makes no appeal on these lines, but he is appalled by the knowledge that the Dominion’s economy is in danger of being based on diversified, small-scale, high-cost secondary industry rather than on the great primary industry of food producing, with which is allied the export of wool. When New Zealand is called on to aid the starving children of Europe, when Sir John Boyd-Orr sees all problems overshadowed by that of food, and when the Dominion’s farm industry is being forced down to a slower tempo, it is time to give heed to the causes that are within New Zealand’s own control of the national inability to send more food abroad.