The N. Z. Times MONDAY, JUNE 3, 1907. THE FARMERS' UNION AND LIMITATION.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 6225, 3 June 1907, Page 4

The N. Z. Times

MONDAY, JUNE 3, 1907. THE FARMERS' UNION AND LIMITATION.

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If the letter from Mr Angus J. McCurdy, late colonial secretary to the Farmers’ Union, docs not put even Mr J. G. ‘Wilson and his unblushing coterie to shame and open the eyes of hard-working farmers to the shameless way in which they are being used in connection with the Land Bill for purposes directly contrary to their interests, nothing that the press can further say is likely to be of much effect. It is inconceivable to us how levelheaded men like Air Orabbe, of lumbolton, with the evidence of the iniquity of land monopoly which ho has before his eyes, and which ho has himself put in such a light as to damn.

beyond redemption any system which permits such abuses to exist, could allow himself to be blinded by the dust which long practice, as president of the Farmers’ Union, has enabled Mr J. G. Wiison to fling so adroitly in the- eyes of farmers. Cannot Mr Crabbe and the class of farmer he represents, the honest workers who desire to mako a decent living out of the land for themselves and their families, perceive that the genuine farmer is being used as a oat’s-paw by the half-dozen who want the roasted chestnuts and who run the Union for the sole purpose of getting them? What chiefly exercises the president of the Farmers’ Union and the gentlemen who form what he calls his "Advisory Board,” the status of which, however, is challenged by Mr McCurdy, is the fear that they may be obliged by limitation enactments to part with any portion of their’overgrown estates to the smaller man who wants a farm. We are obliged to confess that it is infinitely creditable to the astuteness of Mr J. G. Wilson and his “Advisory Board” that they should be able to make of the very men they are desirous to injur© instruments to defeat any attempt at limiting the size of overgrown estates. As to the, subterfuges by which Mr Wilson attempts to dodge and double on the question of the attitude which the Farmers' Union has taken up as regards limitation of holdings, we can only say that it is not creditable to the penetration of the fanners who form the bulk of the Union that they allow themselves to be misled by the transparent sophistries advanced by the landowners whom it pays, according to Mr Crabbe, to finance the Union provided they can run it in their own interests, which interests, wp repeat, are on vital points diametrically opposed to those of the genuine farmer and especially to the interests of the too numerous class who are anxious to obtain a living acreage of land and cannot get it. We have ©very respect for a genuine Farmers’ Union. There is work for such a Union to do, and important interests for. such a Union to further and protect. But the farmers need not deceive themselves. The Union, as it is managed at present, is run on lines that are hostile to their best interests.

A disingenuous attempt is being made to lead the farmer by the nose, to make him a counter in a game which is very much to his own disadvantage. Never was there a more ridiculous misnomer than to call by the name of Farmers’ Union the league of a few land monopolists who are anxious to prevent the enactment of any reasonable measure by which they may find themselves obliged to part with some of their superfluity of land to those who have too little or none at all. Nor is the concern of these gentlemen altogether retrospective. If any drastic limitation clause is passed, they foresee that their operations will be undesirably hampered in the future. In the face of a reasonable limitation clause, it will be impossible to add this and that Naboth’s vineyard to what they already possess. “And Ahab spake unto Naboth, saying, give mo thy vineyard that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near unto my house; and I will give thee for it a better vineyard; or, if it seem good to thee, I will give thee the worth of it in money.” How history repeats itself! Put Kimbolton for Jezreel and there you are. Listen to Mr Crabbe on the .text of Naboth’s vineyard; “A man had told him that there were now forty fewer families in the Kimbolton district than when he arrived there. Seven families had BEEN SENT AWAY TO MAKE ONE LARGE ESTATE. The SEVEN EMPTY HOUSES COULD NOW BE SEEN ALL ALONG THE

EGAD, AND ANOTHER FARM HAD JEST BEEN ADDED.” This is what has come of the propaganda of Mr J. G. Wilson and what calls his , “Adv isory Board.” What Mr J. G. Wilson is particularly anxious-to preserve, and what ho asks the farmers of the colony to assist him in preserving, is the right to turn seven moderate holdings into one monster holding, so that the pleasant sight may be seen in this colony of seven deserted habitations along one road in one district. But Mr Orabbe gives further particulars: “One owner at Waituna had squeezed out thirteen families, and another seven.” Can such things be? And is an organisation whose policy is to defend and further such a state of things to be allowed to call itself the Farmers’ Union P And is it to be allowed to make the very farmers themselves aid and abet a policy which is to oust them from their farms. But Mr J. G. Wilson will answer that no harm was done to these thirteen families who were squeezed out. Each farmer was paid for his farm a price which he considered remunerative, and went and settled elsewhere. That may or may not be. But, assuming that to be the- case, it simply amounts to this, that thirteen farmers gave up their farms for a consideration, and settled down on thirteen new farms, thereby depriving of their chance thirteen others who wanted farms. Of course, Mr Wilson will also tell us that he and the gentlemen who constitute what he calls his “Advisory Board” arc not largo landholders; that their holdings of land would not bo touched by any conceivable limitation clause of the Band Bill. Wo are quite prepared to believe that. Nothing more likely. It would indeed bo bad policy to put tho actual owners of overgrown estates in

the forefront of the movement. But hone the less it is entirely in their interests that Mr Wilson and his “Advisory Board” are working. It is no use blinking facts; Mr J. G. Wilson and bis “Advisory Board” constitute the Farmers’ Union. That the real farmers are sometimes called together and invited to talk and pass resolutions does not alter the fact that the president and his “Advisory Board” are exploiting the farmer in the interests of the big landowner.