The New Zealand Times. THURSDAY, MARCH 29, 1917. PRUSSIA’S LAST HOPE

New Zealand Times, Volume XLII, Issue 9621, 29 March 1917, Page 4

The New Zealand Times. THURSDAY, MARCH 29, 1917. PRUSSIA’S LAST HOPE

It is interesting to note that while the Hon. W. D. S. MacDonald, our New Zealand Minister for Agriculture, is circularising the farmers of the Dominion and calling upon them to sow, an additional 30,000 to 315,000 acres in wheat, in order to provide at least sufficient of that cereal for New Zealand’s food and seed purposes, Air Lloyd George, the British Premier, is sending out a personal letter to every farmer in the United Kingdom, urging him to sow every acre of his land, and thus defeat the last hope of the Prussians —their piratical submarine campaign. Of course the position in New Zealand is nothing like so ■ serious as it is at Home. If the farmers hero refuse to do then duty, wo can readily get cheap wheat from Australia. It is only a question of taking the duty off, and the people may well ask themselves why they should continue to pay a heavy tax on wheat for the benefit of a class who, in time of war, will not grow enough wheat for their country's needs. Air MacDonald asks only that 250,000 acres in all shall be devoted to tho growing of wheat—2so,ooo acres out of 41,000,000 in occupation in the Dominion—and that, surely, is not , a great deal to ask in such critical times as these. On the whole, it can hardly ho gainsaid that the Government is really dealing very leniently with the farmer. This is clearly shown by some remarkable figures quoted by tho Minister for Agriculture, in a recent interview in the “Lyttelton limes,' as to the payments made by tho Government for primary products purchased by the Imperial authorities. The amount paid out for meat in tho last two years is, for example, nearly equal to the return for four years’ exports of meat prior to the war—the total from March 3rd, 1915, to March 17th, 1917, being £15,366,498, as comnared with a total of £15,713,635 for the four years 1910,1911,1912, and 1913. In regard to wool, as the “Lyttelton Times” points out, “the fortunate lot of tno producer is only partly expressed by the' following comparison of export values:

Quantity Value Bales. £ 1914, 613,910 9,318.114 1916-17 (to date) ... 350,331 8,266,806 because he is now relieved ot all the risks and anxieties due to the war. ' The grower has not to worry about freight rates, markets, submarines—all ho has to -do is to pocket returns far eclipsing anything' he had in his wildest dreams before the war imagined to he possible.” It is up to the farmers, therefore, to wake up and do their duty. At Homo, however, it is not the farmers so much as the big landholders that need to bo awakened to a sense of duty. “As regards the question of breaking up grass land and bringing it under cultivation,” says Mr G. Basil Barham, in a recent issue of the “Westminster Gazette,” “there are certain legal difficulties in the way which could ho dealt with hy a short statute.” He points ont that grass land used for feeding cattle will produce some- £5 or £6 per acre, whereas the same lands under potatoes will produce food to the value of over £3O per aero; and ho cites a case in which a tenant who had consistently failed to make a profit on a field of a few acres, took from it in two years, after he had obtained permission to plough it, three crops, the value of which aggregated twice the capital value of the land. “Why, then,” asks Mr Barham. “docs the tenant not take it on ' himself to put grass land under vegetables?” And the answer is that “In hundreds of cases the farmer is not allowed to plough the land. In agricultural leases or tenancy contracts, after the usual reservation of rent,

will follow the clause, ‘And at the further additional rent of £SO for every acre - • .of the meadow or pasture land which shall bo ploughed up or converted into tillage or garden ground.’ In other words, the farmer is threatened with a penalty equal to the full capital value of the land ho rents if ho dares to make it a-s fruitful as a garden. He must not make the best use of the land; be must not enormously increase our home-grown food supply; ho must not benefit the country or himself, or his landlord will come down on him with all the tellers and penalties of the law —that common law of ours which backs the landlord at the expense of the nation.”

One can well imagine what a howl of indignation there would be if the State came down with a penalty equal to the full capital value of the land on the land monopolists who thus prevent tho best use of the land in the nation’s time of utter peril—upon the land monopolists who, and not the submarines, m’o really tile Prussians’ last hope. But, manifestly, such a penalty—or, - perhaps better, the for-. Fciturc of tho land itself—would be far more like common sense and far more like common justice than the present topsy-turvy state of affairs. The position at Homo is, indeed, almost too absurd even for comic opera. “Some months ago,” writes Mr Barham, “appeals were constantly being made to farmers to grow more wheat. The Board of Agriculture seemed to be waking up. But they bad been anticipated. I know of on© man who farms 800 acres, of which 300 arc under grass. Immediately the war broke out, realising tho necessity for increased food supplies, ho applied for permission to break up the grass land. Without permission ho dare not use the plough, for in his agreement is the usual restrictive covenant which lays him open to a penalty of £SO per acre. On throe occasions, during the first sixteen months of the war, he begged for permission, offering to pay increased rent, of course; and on each occasion he was refused. Meanwhile, officials at the Board of Agriculture nerd appealing to farmers to plough pasturage, to sow more wheat, to increase the food resources of tho country 1” .