PRIMARY PRODUCTION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23057, 7 June 1938, Page 15

PRIMARY PRODUCTION

Sir, —Considering ways and means of building up the resources of New Zealand, which we all agree is essentially a primary producing country, would it not be a wise measure to try to reduce the flow of population to the towns and concentrate on. building up land interests, by making them more attractive. We all acquiesce in the assumption, 1 think, that a great preponderance of the energy and money expended in this country, is not directed into reproductive channels, and, owing to the good wages and short hours meted out to those in urban employment, fewer and fewer people are willing to accept employment on the land, from whence almost the whole of the wealth of the country is derived, while the men, women, and even children, who produce it for us, have to work from 11 to 12 hours a day and that for seven days a week, so 7io wonder the lite is not attractive. Now, from a purely selfish point of view, if from no other, we should do all in our power to encourage this very estimable and seemingly unthinking section of the community (speaking in terms, that is, of their own advancement, in comparison with the benefits their industry bestows on the rest of us) to greater efForts on our behalf, and would suggest that a substantial pension he paid to every farmer on attaining the age of 60 years, irrespective of whether he continues on the land or not. We should reallv he giving him nothing but a small portion of what he had been contributing toward the upkeep of the community during his "whole life, and the fact of farming carrying a pension would undoubtedly attract many more people to the land, so that, instead of endlessly spending money on unremunerative public works and expensive social services beyond our requirements, we should be building on a very firm foundation. E. Cawman. 8 New Windsor TCoad, Avondale.