FALSE ECONOMY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21249, 1 August 1932, Page 14

FALSE ECONOMY

FARMERS AND THE LAND REDUCED RESEARCH GRANTS BY H.B.T. If the present timo of financial stress has taught us one lesson, it is that our welfare, and indeed our economic existence, is entirely dependent upon tho primary producer. It is certainly advisable, and possibly essential, that wo should develop our secondary industries with it view both to providing work for many not suited to employment in tho production or transport of tho fruits of the land, and ultimately to making our Dominion self-supporting. At tho same time, when wo force ourselves to rcaliso the bald truth that not more than possibly half-a-dozen of our manufactured articles could be sold at a profit outside tho threemilo limit, wo must coino to the conclusion that at tho moment they aro not the industries on which wo should concentrate our energies to bring about a recovery from tho present chaos. It is to bo feared that in tho past we have, by tariffs and other means, spent moro than the country could afford on bolstering up secondary industries which to-day' are still nothing moro than expensive unemployment schemes. At the same timo we have dono little of real value toward developing a greater and ' more economically produced output of those primary industries which bring us practically tho wliolo of our real wealth. Fewer Farmers I heard it recently stated by Captain Colbeck, a business man of Auckland, that despite the huge sums of money spent by tho Government since 1920 in acquirmg and developing land and in establishing men thereon, there was actually a smaller area occupied to-day as farming and grazing land and thero were fewer farmers in the Dominion than in 1920. If this is so it is obvious either that there is something wrong with our land or with our farming methods. Actually we have less than 25 per cent of our adult population engaged in primary production, whereas, did wo realise on which sido our bread was buttered at least 50 per cent would be active producers. Wo must assume that, despite its being our only source of incomo, either farming is not a lucrative and therefore not an attractive calling or that thero is not sufficient good lands in Naw Zealand to support double the number of farmers. Tho greatest, indeed tho only, advances we have made in greater and more profitable production from the land in recent years have beqn tho direct result of the application of scientio discoveries to farming practice. Tho discoveries of science have revolutionised tho breeding of dairy cattle for higher production. Tho separator and refrigerator among mechanics, and rotational grazing, the breeding of more prolific pasture grasses and tho secrets of more successful agriculture among natural researches are all the results of systematic scientific study. Scientists have, indeed, taught us so many new and profitable ways of farming and of improving the value of our products that the man on the land conducts a totally different business from the farmer of twenty years ago. Increase in Production In spite of higher wages, higher tariffs making his necessities moro expensive, higher taxes and higher transport charges, tho farmer has of late years been enabled to increase his production many hundred-, fold—by the aid of applied science. If we accept the value of scientific research as it effects our most valuable industries, wo must admit that the Government could not spend its money more wisely in this, a country solely dependent on prirtiary products, than in establishing and liberally supporting colleges or research stations devoted to the furthering of scientific' farming, and the solution' of problems confronting the producer. All thinking farmers looked on the establishment of Massey Agricultural College a few years ago, as heralding a new era in stimulated production in the North Island Thero not only could men and boys interested in the land and its subsidiary industries receive a training which would enable them to bo the evangelists of still better farming, but problems of vital interest to fanning as particularly applicable to tho North Island were to be studied, and would no doubt ultimately be solved. Continuity in Research For the important positions of research officers and instructors, studying wool, pastures, stock breeding, stock diseases and soil problems, the most ablo men were chosen from both the Dominion and abroad. These problems—age-old, most of them—cannot be solved in a day or a year. Every theory, every discovery, must be carefully proved and checked, that tho truth of the ultimate finding may be unassailable. It is obvious, too, that continuity of individual effort must bo given if success is to bo achieved in any research. It is disastrous to lose an officer who has devoted several years, perhaps, to the study of one particular problem. We can readily carry on without continuity of service in such occupations as that of the postman, the policeman or the politician, in fact an occasional change appeals with them to inspire new zeal. Tho research worker who is devoted to his job, however, cannot bo replaced until his quest is finished. It would appear to bo at least a policy of misguided economy which inspires our Government at present, however hardpressed it may be, to reduce tho by no meahs liberal grant to Massey Agricultural College, and consequently necessitate the reduction of tho staff who aro doing noblo work to improve tho output from tho only industries from which wo can hope for financial salvation. It looks like a revised method of " killing tho goose that lays tho golden egg."