STATE TRENDS

New Zealand Herald, Volume 80, Issue 24757, 3 December 1943, Page 4

STATE TRENDS

! "REWARD FOR FAILURE" DIFFICULTIES OF FARMERS The throe things of intrinsic value were land, wisdom and work, said Mr. E. Earle Vaile in an address on "Agricultural Prospects in New Zealand," given to tlie Royal Empire Society yesterday. Professor F. P. Worley presided. The land, said the speaker, was ample for all needs', but wisdom was a diminishing quantity. Government was in the hands of the less instructed and less responsible half of the community. All reward was for failure. If a man after years of work was not worth a cent, he received a pension. If he was not quite qualified for that, he was given a Government job. If a man did achieve to some substance, he was taxed to the limit to help those who had never exerted their productive ability, nor restrained their consumptive capacity. It was a dreadful fact that the country's exports were produced by unpaid labour, said Mr. Vaile, who quoted instances of farms going out of dairy production because of the difficulty in securing labour. In one case, a property on which 110 cows were being milked now held no cattle. The farmer did not strike, for his stake in the country outweighed his grievances. The speaker asked his hearers to suppose what would happen if 110 milk were delivered for a day, or for a week. The farmer, with his unpaid labour, would continue to cultivate the land and lie might bring in a small, but a very small additional acreage. Butter produced under trade union restrictions would cost 5s per lb. W'oolgrowing needed much less labour than dairy farming, but the position of wool was most seriously threatened. Meat was in better case, because no substitute had been invented for meat, and some improvements in transport and packing were likely. SCHOOL LEAVING AGE REGULATIONS NEXT WEEK GRADUAL EFFECT OF CHANGE (P.A.) NEW PLYMOUTH, Thursday The primary school leaving ag»; will be raised to 15 years by regulations to bo brought down next week, said the Minister of Education, the Hon. H. G. R. Mason, to-night. The effect would be gradual and the full influence of the measure would be felt only at the end of 1944 or the beginning of the 1945 school year. Mr. Mason said the regulations were being drafted on exactly similar lines to the terms of tho bill presented in Parliament. No child who became 14 before the new school year would he compelled to remain at school Mhcause the present- rule would still apply. Any child attending school next year who became 14 would remain at school until attaining 15 years. UNUSUAL MEMORIAL ROYAL SOCIETY VOLUMES A complete set of the Transactions and Proceedings of tho Royal Society of London, dating back to ]665, which was assembled by the late Professor Coleridge Farr, F.R.S., will be maintained at the Canterbury College library as a memorial to the professor. It is the only complete set of its kind in New Zealand. The college is endeavouring to raise £IOOO required as nn fiidowmeht to provide £25 a year for the purchase of new volumes as thev appear. The Royal Society of London is one of the oldest and most distinguished scientific bodies in the world. The late Dr. Farr was made a fellow in 1929 in recognition of his researches in physics. EARTHQUAKES RECORDED (P. A.) WELLINGTON, Thursday Two major earthquakes were recorded at the Dominion observatory, one just after 6 p.m. and the other just before 11 p.m. The second may have been of destructive severity. Its location was probably in the Pacific beyond Japan. New Guinea may have been the location of the first. A cablegram says that fairly severe earthquakes were recorded by the Fordham University (United. States) seismograph early on Wednesday morning. The first was in the general direction of the Netherlands East Indies. The second was much more severe, but could not be- fcwmted.