Manawatu Evening Standard. SATURDAY, JUNE 13, 1936. FARM AND FACTORY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 165, 13 June 1936, Page 8

Manawatu Evening Standard. SATURDAY, JUNE 13, 1936. FARM AND FACTORY.

Agriculture is, and always must be, the principal occupation of the human race. The reason is not far to seek. The human race must be fed, clothed and housed, and Mother Earth when kindly treated provides the necessities for man's services—for his living, for his comforts and pleasures. The farmer deals with life —plant life, animal life and human life. Crops are planted and harvested year after year. Individual plants die and disappear, but the production of wheat, oats, barley, and other cereals, cotton, flax, tobacco, and apples goes on without end. The farmer raises cattle, sheep, pigs, horses and chickens. Individual animals are slaughtered or die, but the species persists. Agriculture is based on this fact of reproduction. The farmer is the heir of all the ages with an opportunity to benefit all ages to come. The function of the farmer is to feed, clothe and house the people of the world, and it can be claimed with truth incontrovertible that the farmer has done, is doing, and will continue to discharge his duties faithfully and well, not from any altruistic motives but because it is his mission in life and from which he expects his reward. If the farmer produces ample supplies for the requirements of the peoples of the world, and the latter refuse deliberately or otherwise to make use of the good things of life which the farmer provides, what happens!' 1 We have no need to ask that question for the present awful depression has furnished the answer. The two main groups of producers are in farm and factory. There should be close co-operation between the two. What the farm produces the factory should consume, and what the factory produces the farmer should help to consume. Rut the factory consumption lags, as is shown by the report of the International Labour Office Conference at Geneva. Science and machinery are helping both farm and factory, the latter more fully than the former, and with mass production prices should be reasonably low and within the means of all. There must be a balance between farm production and factory consumption if the world’s economy is to be kept in equilibrium. It is the duty of the Governments to educate 1 heir nationals to the danger of under-consump-tion of necessary foodstuffs, and they could probably go further and indicate a series of balanced diets. Now that the problem of malnutrition is under consideration we do not think it will be allowed to drop; on the contrary we believe that the warnings of doctors and others will ultimately result in good, both to the factory worker and the. farmer.