FEEDING THE TOWNS.

Northern Advocate, 31 July 1924, Page 4

FEEDING THE TOWNS.

AT COUNTRY'S EXPENSE.

ADVANCES SYSTEM CRITICISED

presiding at a meeting of the North - Auckland Progress League last night, . Mr. R. E. Hornblow, Mayor of Dargaville, commenting upon a paragraph ia • the secretary's report which referred toi " the disproportionate growth of towns as compared with the country, said that - he had noticed on more than one occasion lately that large sums had advanced by the Government to citiea and towns, and in some cases there had been open expressions of gratification ink town centres at the Government's liberality in financial assistance for workers' dwellings, public buildings and various town improvement schemes* What was the other side of the picture? asked Mr. Hornblow. He had. personally investigated cases whero good men on the land for want of comparatively small financial help from the Government had been unable to carry on. Saddled with a heavy mortgage, there were many thoroughly industrious men on the land who in aperiod like the present found it difficult to get the money needed for necessary cultivation and improvement of their farms. With help they could pull through all right, and make good. # Applications had poured into the Gov- '

eminent for such "help, and of his own knowledge, these applications were so congested that a delay of six and aine months might take place before they couid be dealth with, and men, to whom reasonably immediate help was tlJeir very life on the land, lost hope in the delay and uncertainty and abandoned their holdings to take a chance among the apparently better opportunities in town and city centres.

This, said Mr. Hornblow, was a very serious state of affairs. Instead of men being attracted from the land to the cities and towns, they should lie attracted to the land from the cities and towns. The policy of helping to make -city life more spacious, convenient and comfortable was dangerous to the country as a whole, if it crippled, the development of the land and thert increase of production in primary industries. The .time had come to call a halt in the political squabbles for supremacy and consider the welfare off the country. He thought the Progress 1 League, as a non-political organisation, was on the right lines in urging the Chambers of Commerce (as it had decided to do) to unite in bringing before the Government the need of more liberal and more speedy financial help to farmers. Unless something were done "to make settlement on the land more worth while, and to stop the over-feeding off towns while the country was partially starved, it would not be long before, the report suggested, the prosperity of the towns would suffer a recoil, whiuli might involve a serious period of dd^

pression and hardship