TIME TO STOP AND THINK

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 60, Issue 4305, 17 July 1950, Page 7

TIME TO STOP AND THINK

(TO THE EDITOR)

Sir, The above caption I pinched from your leader of May 31. George Bernard Shaw said that the average person thought once or twice a year only. He, Shaw, made a success of life by thinking once or twice a week. The writer has heard it said that if you think things out and talk things out you can work things out and as the dairy farmer is once again approaching the cross roads the sooner he stops to think the safer he is likely to be.

The loss of subsidies has a different effect dn farmers according to the class of land he is farming. Some parts of the Hauraki Plains, are rich in minerals and to apply manure would be to waste money “and time. Other parts are «o deficient in minerals that the cost of replacement is terrific. The writer’s land in. reasonably light and responds best to heavy dustings with lime and super and this year the loss of subsidies on manure and railway freight plus increased cost on everything I buy has deflated my income by threepence per pound of butterfat produced and we have not yet reached the limit of increased cost by any means. . I was interested in a little scrap between the members of the Hauraki Catchment Board and the Thames Valley Drainage Board. It is just about time the farmers awoke to the fact that the catchment board is a superfluous body wished on to us by the Works Department to allow the Government to load tfle farmers with the cost of what are quite properly national responsibilities —the cleaning and the maintaining of the Piako, Ohinemuri and Waihou basins. So far the catchment board can only rate the people with the cost of administration and as yet the board s work is confined to 600 'square miles in the Piako area. The money for that work so far is supplied by the Soil Conservation and River Control Board. As yet they have not got control of the 900 square miles in the Waihou basin. If that time comes and they are allowed to strike a rate it will be-time for the farmers to swim out. KEEP THINKING.