Socialisation Of Land

Northern Advocate, 29 July 1938, Page 7

Socialisation Of Land

Wniiiig In llu' “Dominion." Mr W. A. Izard, of Wanganui, a well-known solicitor, says; We hear quite a lot about the scheme of the Minister of Lands for settling men upon the land, so 1 will give you an instance of what I recently saw myself. The particular settlement to which 1 refer is a dairy .'cUiement. The land is level, and the block has been cut up into some sixteen farms. On each farm : a new house with cowshed and pig-styes has been built. The whole area has been subdivided, into small paddocks with excellent fences and shelter trees planted on each farm. To every paddock water has been laid on to a concrete trough, the water coming in pipes from a supply in the neighbouring hills several miles away. The land has been sown down in grass and clover. The occupier of each farm is provided with a herd of cows. The settlement looked an ideal one.

I interviewed one of the occupiers and ascertained from him that all the occupiers were employees of the Government, paid a weekly wage for milking the cows and looking after the farm. They were entitled to extra pay for spreading manure, and could keep for themselves anything they cculd make out of pigs. Their duties consisted of doing only what the inspector told them. He would come around once a week or so, and detail their daily duties until his next visit. I asked him what sort of instructions he got, and he replied that, for instance, "On Monday, I would be told t 0 grub gorse, on Tuesday I would mend the fence the bull broke, on Wednesday I would go to Smith’s and get the distributor, on Thursday he would send someone to show me how to spread manure, and on Friday 1 would take the distributor to Brown’s, but I was to do no work on Saturday and Sunday except to milk the cows, and in no event Was I to do any work which I Was not told to do." I asked him if he did not want a tenure, and his answer was, “No, not on this land, none of us want it if we have to pay interest on its cost. We rhake more out of wages than anyone could do if he owned this class of land and had to milk on it. We do as we are told, we have no responsibility, and the good old Government stands the 1055..” I went on then to another section where a year before I had seen a dump of about a ton of super in a corner where there was a considerable amount of gorse and scrub. The gorse and scrub was * still there, 'and so was the manure, spoilt, of course, by its year's exposure to the weather. The explanation was simple. The occupier had received the manure *to put oh his land, but had been satisfied with receiving the extra pay for spreading it without the labour involved in doing so. These men had no incentive to work at all, they were merely automatons, part, no doubt, of the Government’s objective in the Socialisation of the means of production. Is this the condition to which the Govevrnment desires to reduce the farming community as a whole?