VALUE OF AGRICULTURE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23864, 19 July 1939, Page 14

VALUE OF AGRICULTURE

PENALTY OF NEGLECT WARNING TO GOVERNMENT <From Our Parliamentary Reporter* WELLINGTON, July 18. “ No Government which neglects agriculture or the primary industries of a country prospers for long,” said Mr E. B. K. Gordon (Opposition, Rangitikei), in his maiden speech in Parliament during the Addfess-in-Reply Debate in the House of Representatives to-night. Agriculture, he added, was the foundation of New Zealand’s national life.

The Opposition would like an indication from the Government of its land policy, Mr Gordon said. Many young men who were potential farmers had been attracted away from the land to other occupations. Was communnity farming or a State peasantry the Government’s idea of a land settlement policy? The farmers of New Zealand would not stand for that. One thing they valued was their independence and their freedom to work their farms in accordance with their own ideas.

The farmers’ grievance, Mr Gordon said, was that any advantage that might accrue to them by way of better prices was more than cancelled out by higher costs as a result of the Government’s legislation. For years the farmers had had to carry the brunt of the increased taxation, and it was only by increasing their production that they had been able to do this.