LABOUR’S CRISIS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26782, 27 May 1948, Page 6

LABOUR’S CRISIS

Sir,—" New Zealander.” wlio wrote to you a short time ago criticising the Government, little dreamt that for his efforts he was to receive such a dressing down as would necessitate his retiring ignominiously from the fray* It is only when they think that the National drivel ana misrepresentation has gone far enough that men of Mr George E. Cross’s type decide that it is time the public was told the truth. Your correspondent had little difficulty in disposing of the baseless charges made by “ New Zealander." Being a farmer of long standing and in a big way, he was able to state facts-about the treatment meted out to the farmer to-day compared with earlier periods. It is one of the unwritten but most prominent planks in the National platform that on every possible occasion the Labour Government must be depicted as the. enemy of the. farmer. How continuously' they pursue this line everybody knows." Many of your correspondents pretend to believe that before the advent of Labour New Zealand was a farmer’s paradise. They forget that in the early years of the depression the late Mr Coates declared that if the bankruptcy laws of the country were enforced over 50 per cent, of the farmers would be through the Bankruptcy Court. This was the reward the farmer received for supporting for over 20 years the so-called farmers’ Government. Had there been no change in 1935, few, if any,, of the 50 per cent, would have been on the land to-day. Is it, then, unfair to ask that all those farmers who were saved from financial ruin by this Government should show just a little gratitude, or do they prefer to go back to rafferty rules?— I am, etc., Commonsense.