PROBLEM OF THE FARMER

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4801, 23 June 1939, Page 7

PROBLEM OF THE FARMER

CONCERNING WHOLE DOMINION SOMETHING MUST BE DONE. ANALYSIS OF POSITION. (Contributed.) In spite of the cold weather and the counterattraction of the parade there was a large attendance — mostly farmers—at Captain Rushworth’s meeting on Tuesday of last week. This seems to me evidence that the farmer is taking alarm at his precarious position. He realises that he is facing a crisis and that something must be done. Something must be done. But what? This was the question that Captain Rushworth asked, but-he did not give us the answer. The trouble is desperate. We are still lookingfor the remedy. Let us, at any rate, look for the cause—not the immediate—but the fundamental cause.

To my mind it is the old, old story of the lavish expenditure of the homestead ruining the farm. We have all seen individual farms thus ruined, and what is New Zealand but a farm?—one big farm wherein everyone who works is either farming, serving the farmer, or serving those who serve the farmer. True, we have a little gold. We also have some very outstanding scenic attractions that bring tuorists. These items taken together account for something less than 5 per cent, of the national sterling income. Everything else comes from the sale of primary produce. The parallel between an individual farm and the large farm called New Zealand is almost complete. Let us consider the Government—successive Governments through the years—as the Farmer. He certainly took up, about 100 years ago, a fertile piece of land, ring-fenced by the sea, though rather remote from his markets, and began to develop it slowly but surely. The land was the foremost concern, but the homestead, which we now call the Towns, were also necessary and were not neglected. He raised a loan that the improvements, such as roads, railways, bridges, etc., should not be delayed so long as to interfere with production. He also added to his family by adopting many of his kinsmen from overseas.

Because transport charges were high many home industries were started on this remote farm. There was no thought of exporting the products of these. Indeed, they were never able to supply the homestead. The wage earners in these home industries soon demanded higher pay. This the farmer readily granted. (It was long due.) Again and again these wages were raised till the home industries cost more to produce than the same goods from overseas, in spite of transport costs. It then became necessary to weight the overseas goods with a tariff or a duty so that the home industries might remain saleable. This process was repeated again and again—rise in wages, rise in duties, therefore rise in cost of living on the farm. Then old Farmer N.Z. was faced with the necessity of improving the homestead. He built hospitals, schools, museums, railway stations, laid out parks, harnessed rivers for electricity. Loans were raised to pay for these things and taxes began to be onerous and the cost of living rose continually. The homestead became so attractive and the standard of living so high, and the hours of work so short that only stark necessity made any of his children of Old N.Z. willing to go out on the farm. Those whose interests were already there grumbled, but to no effect. The Farmer adhered to the principle of teking the advice of the majority and the majority lived round the homestead and hardly remembered that they were living on a farm. Still, by dint of hard work and better methods the farm managed to carry the burden till all of a sudden the home dwellers (a short rise in produce prices made it possible) feeling the strength given by their large majority, fairly took the bit in their teeth and put up wages and costs to an extent never known before, and entirely divorced from any relation to the primary production on which the home depended. At first a meteoric rise in farm prices made this new burst of extravagance possible, but when in due course these fell the true state of affairs became apparent. The profits of the farm can no longer support the extravagances of the homestead. The crisis is facing not only the land but the dwellers round the homestead, too. Something must be done, but what?

I think the wise farmer would begin by telling his non-farming children what the position is.