JEWISH FARMING

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 78, 24 November 1943, Page 3

JEWISH FARMING

IMPRESSIONS OF MR T. L. MACDONALD. M.P. COMMUNAL AND CO-OPERATIVE SYSTEMS The hope of the Jewish community in Palestine to have one family on the land for every two families in the towns was emphasised by Mr T. L. Macdonald, M.P., Mataura, when he gave an address at the National Club luncheon in Christchurch. Mr Macdonald, who has recently returned from service in the Middle East, spent some time in Palestine studying the farming methods of the Jewish settlers. He said the Jews had not yet quite attained their ideal ratio of rural to urban families, but they did attach great importance to agriculture. Mr Macdonald said he had been interested in the Jewish settlements because he thought New Zealand might be able to learn something from them which would be useful in dealing with post-war problems. Jews were not usually thought of as farmers, largely because they had not been able to own land in many European countries, and when they went to Palestine they had to be trained. They would have something like the same problem in New Zealand, although on a much smaller scale, when soldiers returning from the war wished to take up outdoor occupations. It would be fatal to put them on farms without training. There were two types of settlement in Palestine, said Mr Macdonald, the communal type and the small-holder co-operative system. In addition, some Jewish farmers were working on individual lines as in New Zealand. He was told that the Jewish community was not wedded to the communal type, and that, provided a man was settled on a farm and was farming efficiently, it did not matter whether h e was in a group or farming as an individual. He was impressed with the way all members of a communal settlement gave of their best, although no money passed in the settlement itself. The settlement was controlled by a committee which allocated the work and conducted financial dealings with the outside world. The Jews had been so oppressed in their old homes that they would go to lengths of self-discipline impossible to suggest for New Zealand to make their settlement a success. They had been battered from pillar to post and had endured great suffering; to them Palestine was the nearest thing to heaven. They would go to any lengths to make the scheme work. He was told that some Russians had visited the settlement he saw shortly before he was there and had not liked the extreme form of communism they saw. In Russia the farm workers lived on small sections grouped round the large State farms. They could dispose of the produce of their own farmlets as they wished and were paid for the hours of work they put in on the State farms.

Mr Macdonald thought it was more likely that New Zealand could learn useful lessons from the co-operative farming system. In one group which he visited there were 80 farms on 25 acres. In addition to the families on the farms there were 30 families engaged on the administrative side of the settlement, which had its own veterinary surgeon, doctor, and dentist. The net profit from each farm was low, but the settlement provided many amenities not available in an ordinary farming community.