FARMERS' CONFERENCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16850, 15 May 1918, Page 6

FARMERS' CONFERENCE.

Among the topics to be discussed at the forthcoming Farmers' Union Conference are several of outstanding national importance. Some of the remits affect only the farming community, but prominently placed on the agenda are subjects in which the interests of the farmers are hardly separable from the interests of the Dominion as a whole. This can be said unreservedly of the harnessing of water power and of the need of afforestation, both of which are set down by the executive for early consideration. Widespread interest will also centre in a group of remits bearing on the settlement of soldiers. Several of these sweepingly condemn the action of the Government in purchasing improved estates while large areas of land are lying idle for lack of communications. The attention of delegates to the conference may be specially directed to this phase of land settlement. Frequent reference to it has been made in the columns of the Heeald. Large sums of money are being expended in the purchase of high-priced estates. Their acquisition by the Government adds nothing to the area of settled land, their subdivision will add little to the production of the Dominion. The same outlay wisely directed to the construction of railways and roads through waste and uncultivated lands, and in making such lands fit for settlement, would have opened opportunities for an immensely greater number of soldiers and would ultimately enrich both the .farmer ami the State by the increase of sports and the additional railway revenue and taxation drawn from the newly-created farms. The system of purchase has been carried to an extreme and inexcusable limit. An emphatic pronouncement on the subject by the Farmers' Conference would be of great value as showing the Government the folly of going further on the wasteful course it has recently pursued. Another subject upon which the decision of the conference should assist in shaping a sound national policy is the making and maintenance of main arterial roads. Three branches submit resolutions urging the Government to make the main roads a national responsibility, so lifting from small local bodies an impossible burden and clearing New Zealand of the disgrace which its arterial roads bring upon it and of the handicap which they place upon ; its industry. A few remits bearing upon railway policy and after-war ' reconstruction are unfortunately placed at the end of the order paper. They might, with advantage, have taken the place of the series dealing with Parliamentary representation, a subject which is more debatable *

and less pressing. Possibly good may come from the cautious suggestions of the executive, made with the object of arousing interest in our system < of government, and of gathering information which may tend to improve it, but the same can hardly be said of the rash proposal from HuntAy West for the creation of a farmers' party in Parliament which would be free from all alliances and which would pursue a policy "dictated by the union executive." This would be a step, not forward towards national administration as the executive seems to desire, but backward to the caucus in its least responsible and most reprehensible form. The other matters for consideration cover a wide field. Education and the meat trust, taxation and the ousting of the Germans from the Pacific, the conscription of aliens and the purchase of ships to carry farmers' produce are but samples indicating the many-sided nature of the conference, which should do much to arouse interest in public questions and assist materially in the early settlement of such of them as call for urgent action.