LAND POLICY WANTED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23010, 11 April 1938, Page 10

LAND POLICY WANTED

"Farming as a career has to be made attractive," was the sound conclusion come to by Mr. S. J. Hollard, in discussing present land problems at a meeting of the South Taranaki Farmers' Union. If youths are to be recruited for the land, if existing labour forces are to be retained and, ultimately, if primary production is to be maintained and national welfare with it, solid advantages must attach to the rural way of life. Under the present Government the balance is being tipped the other way. Far from youth being given that "agricultural bias" of which the Minister of Education talked hopefully in 1930, Mr. Hollard points out that the competition of public works jobs and higher wages in towns is denuding the country of, young men. Unless the urban drift be checked, New Zealand's economy will suffer heavy damage. What is wanted is a land policy which will offer young men a reasonable chance of graduating from farm labourer to farmer. They must see something ahead of them to induce them to embrace the more (strenuous, if freer, life on the land. Unfortunately the Government has no land policy. It has evolved schemes covering scores of less vital activities, but on this central and fundamental problem offers no solution. At one time a young man might help himself to become established on a piece of land by earning ready money from road contracts, bush falling,, fencing, gum digging or draining, but these opportunities are much rarer,to-day.' Generally, moreover,/ he must command more capital to obtain a start.. It is not surprising, therefore, if many despair of a future on the land and turn to public works or the towns. If that trend be allowed to continue, production will suffer and social and every other kind of security be undermined. A land policy that will re-open farming as a career for young men is a first essential and the lack of it is the most telling commentary on the fitness of the Labour Party to govern a, oountry like New Zealand.