ARE WE WELL-GOVERNED ?

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14855, 5 December 1911, Page 9

ARE WE WELL-GOVERNED ?

FROM A FARMER'S POINT OF VIEW. (By He rax Wilt.) At the moment when a general election is . imminent, and the air is filled with the impassioned rhetorio of politicians anxious to retain , their seats and the exaggerated diatribes of candidates equally anxious to push them off, it is possible that a brief expression of the views of one of that unimaginative class who are more occupied in doing things than in loudly proclaiming what ought, to be done, may bo read "with a certain amount of toleration. The farmer has been felicitously likened by an American author to the wheelere of the coach of State, making less fuss and show than the leaders, , but palling steadily up hill, and holding back like the very deuce when that often ill-directed vehicle is running too fast down tho dangerous declivity of ill-considered legislative experiments. The moment has surely arrived for him to throw his sturdy weight into the breeching and steady the heavy chariot now being urged by prodigal and reckless drivers down the hill which ends in that precipice called by some " the; now Liberalism," and brothers "Socialism," at the Government of which the whole body politic bids fair soon to lie. And he has the necessary weight to hold .it if he can only be awakaned.

From his nature and from the facts of his environment the farmer is a )nan of fewer ideas than his city-bred contemporary, and less liable to easily chango long-cherished convictions for new-fangled political nostrums, but what he does know he knows with a thoroughness all his own, though, being 'by nature somewhat inarticulate it is but rarely that he gives to the world - his views of things and men as he sees them.- Owing to hie isolation, compelled to be far less gregarious than ho would like to be, he seldom has an opportunity of discussing with his peers the social and political questions that, agitate the public mind. On matj ters that directly concern himself, bow- | ever, he has firmly fixed opinions that I will make him irrißistible when adversity ! has one© taught him th© art of political ( combination and concerted action. Times have been fairly good with him. for the last few years, or the Continuous Government would not have been allowed so long to vex his heart and rifle him of his means. . . For twenty years • the Ministry has been in office. I? or two decades it has weilded powers . undreamed of by previous Governments. • Its shameless adoption of the " spoils to the victors" policy has enabled it to reward and punish electorates no less than individuals, and its power of making . State appointments has permitted it before now to remove able opponents from the political field. It. has .turned tho second chamber from an effective and independant branch of the legislature into a refuge for political dead-beats, incapable of caving anything but "ditto" to the power that has given them a few years tenure of office, with the chance of a renewal if they subserviently gink their principles and opinions. It lias used the great public services as machines to help it to retain the reins ot government. Originally, elected as a selfreliant, non-borrowing patty, it has added £42,000,000 to the country's debt, and made New Zealand the moat over-taxed place in the Empire. It has endeavoured to withold the ireehold tro-!i the settler, and has forced tho unfortunate farmer who has one . to pay a heavy premium to insure that it should not be forcibly taken from him. It has kept back the waste lands from the haaids, of would-bo cultivators, thus driving hundreds of out finest and most energetic young, men from our shores, and Tips created a race of - Maori landlords to - 101 l and loaf on the labour of their British-born sens, it has concealed public accounts as if it dared' not face- the light, and has cur-

tailed, the powers of the Auditor-General. In local government it has destroyed the < logical proportion between taxation an*, representation, and has conferred where no responsibility is imposed. Ant to crown* all it has broken the hearts _ot way-back settlers, nob only by breaking promises innumerable, but by wiliui > and illegally witholding giants made Dj Parliament. And by the odious rate anc a-half rail-charge on imported galvanised iron and timber that has already paid a. r heavy duty, the man on the land is j heavily smitten by a rod that touches not tlie city-dwellers. . If there is any one subject on which 1 the farmer is clearly entitled to bo heard ( it is surely that of the land, and the tenure upon which it is to be held. It is tho raw material of his factory, and to hamper him in tta use of it, or to unduly tax him in tho holding of it reacts with mechanical precision upon the whole community. lie has long ago made up his mind that the ice simple is tho one tenure tolerable for a moment, and this is so ( universally recognised oven by land- _ nationalises that the point need ' not be laboured here. But ii no land bo mado ' available for him, or if, having land, lie 1 has 110 proper access to it, tho question i of tenure becomes of little importance. , Li a country so undeveloped and so thinly ( populated as New Zealand, it must be plain to tli(3 shallowest intellect that the man who really counts is the primary 1 producer. His .exertions alone enaible . tho rest of the community to live, anil ; the export of - his surplus is the solo ■ method the country has of paying its obligations to its creditors. A manufacturing country may by the export of its wares at least buy itself food, and thus bo more or less independent of , its farmers, but in New Zealand the only thing between us and national bankruptcy is tho produce of the land. It would naturally be thought that such being tbo case his welfare and continued prosperity would be the object of tho tender solici- , tude of everyone, and that every opportunity possible would bo given to him to produce and bring to market _ more and moro of his productions. While an acre capable of adding its trifle to the national income lies barren and unproductive, or which a single back block settler is cut, off from his market for want of rail or road, the common sense of the community should hold that the State is falling short in its duty. . And yet what do wo see?. In the cities and boroughs are a numerous section who not only tail to perceive that their, own welfare is inextricably interwoven with that of the country settler, but who, by some unaccountable obliquity of mental vision persist in believing that his progress means their retrogression instead of the converse. They appear as if obsessed by the motion that as soon as the State parts with a section of land it is packed hp and taken out of the country, instead of being turned from a hindrance to progress to a national asset, producing an income for the country as well as for its owner, and enabling at least one city-dweller to subsist for every cultivator it employs. They not only desire that no further facilities may be given to him to take up the waste lands, but thev even' urge that he should be further taxed on the raw material he has already wrested from the wilderness. The ex-Minister who has seceded from his party in the liopo of superseding it with bis new evangel of socialism .and single-, tax, prophesies for us a now heaven and a new earth if another penny bo added to the 1 land-tax. ■ And he and his moro candid followers always refer to the proposal as a punishment to a' class for the crime of owning the land values they have themselves created, rather than for the. legitimate, if painful, purpose of raising necessary revenue. "Another turn of'tne screw," they call it, and feci as complacont and self-satisfied as the worthy Plant-agenet who extracted loans from the Jews by the aid of a dentist's forceps. Whether men of this stamp believe what they say about tho effect of j their proposal is of very little consequence j except from the point of view of their j own consciences—if any. But their hearers are too frequently _ unable to discriminate . between rhetoric and reason, and the : hope of gottincsomething for nothing gratifies the cupidity of the shortsighted individual who cannot see tar ahead. . , , ... There are . four things that probably evervone who has the welfare of the country at' heart would admit were desirable. These are : That public expenditure should bo brought within reasonable bounds, and taxation consequently decreased. That a steady stream of suitable immigrants should bo attracted to our shores. That the wasto lauds, both Maori and Crown, should be opened up as rapidly as required,, and that the power of bribing or punishing individuals or. electorates by the granting or withholding votes for public works tie taken . from the Ministry. These, if coupled with clean administration, and a rest from harassing legislation, would soon again make tho Dominion a desirable place to live in. Ihe Prime Minister's pre-election speeches have made it plain that if he has a policy at all, it docs not include these items, and, if it did, those who remember how he pledged himself to spend a million in roads and bridges in four years, and did not redeem two-fifths of" his promise, would not rely upon his carrying "out such a programme. To Mr. Massey, then, and the Reform party, the eyes of all who arc not ' content with things as they aro must turn.