AN ARMISTICE AND A TREATY

Otago Witness, Issue 3514, 19 July 1921, Page 26

AN ARMISTICE AND A TREATY

TO THE EDITOR. Sib, — Farmers have occupied lately a perhaps somewhat unreasonable share of your space, and it is the object of this final letter from myself to express a hope that, now that the Minister concerned has found time amidst pressing public engagements to meet the farmers frankly and fearlessly in conference, the kindness with which you have opened your columns to our troubles need hereafter no longer' be trespassed upon. It is not for me to sot out to convey to the public the terms of the Minister’s replies to a representative meeting o? farmers at Ranfurly yesterday, —that is the Minister’s privilege. But as I have been responsible for offering some plain criticism of the conditions recently existing—and I make no apology of excuses for Placing clone so, for most emphatically they required it—l think it would be ungenerous and unfair in me were I to maintain unbroken silence after the entirely friendly, apd I think mutually satisfactory discussion we have just had with the Minister at Ranfurly. I need hardly say that I am not presuming to drag into the results of that conference any share I myself have had in the controversy. That, even if I had ever been tempted to so vain and pretentious a suggestion, would be rendered absolutely unnecessary by the unanimity of the meeting in question after the Minister had patiently listened to several speakers who put the matters in dispute far more directly and excellently than I ever did, and when lie had frankly and honourably told them in reply what was in Bis mind as a method of meeting their complaints. I do not think I am exceeding the unvarnished facts if I say that this large gathering of farmers responded with sincere cordiality to an exposition of the new Ministerial attitude which, while involving- no impairment of the dignity we look for and respect in a responsible Minister of the Crown, nevertheless convinced a representative body of farmers that our visitor had generously put aside all feelings of resentment such as might not unnaturally have controlled the response of lesser men, and, a v s a farmer himself, had mot our complaints face to face, and so far as his responsibilities permitted frankly undertaken their completely effective redress. He is evidently not. the man to permit I he foolish bluster of subordinate officers of his department, in court or out of it. to supersede their Minister in the final guidance of his policy. That js_ as regards the matter of statutory revision. Certain other aspects of the recent correspondence, which will be understood as affecting Central Otago exclusively, could not be, and I think the meeting did not expect to be. dealt with finally there and then by the Minister in especial charge of the Department of Agriculture. It will, suffice to say that so far as was at the moment reasonably possible we were reassured on the vital points alluded to in terms on which we may be well content to rely in the meantime, and that wo shall confidently expect to hear more of these reassurances presently when the Minister shall have rejoined his colleagues. I should not be writing this letter at all if there had been any soft-sawder or sooth-ing-syrup business in question, or if, in the course of the personal association with which I he Minister had honoured me, I had myself succumbed to intangible influences sometimes so induced. Recognising, in fact, that something of the kind’ might be suggested, I ventured to ask I lie meeting if they had not rather expected '-me to land from the ministerial ear with a pair of handcuffs on, or, alternatively, with an inspired announcement of the arrival of the millennium and th-' lying down together of the lion and the lamb-—(I don't, think X specified which was which). Anyhow, the meeting was properly determined to have none of that from, either of us; and it is only bare justice to the Minister to record that neither privately nor publicly did he ever attempt it. lie saw that plain English was demanded ; he got it, and he gave it ; and while there was at the meeting no surrender of Ministerial dignity, there was an entire absence ol superfluous Ministerial

frills, and a welcome discarding of the too familiar diplomatic ingenuities. The only point that now requires further urging by farmers, as it has been urged in your columns by myself—we could not take up every phase of the matter at Ranfurly, as it began to get dark and the Minister had still to speak at another distant town that evening—is that of the return of a portion of the recent ruinous fines to the union unale persons affected, it would be unreasonable to require an immediate answer, but I trust the Minister will be firmly pressed to give those cases his free and fair reconsideration. Since there is to be an armistice pending the actual formalising by the Minister ot the promised changes, it i, not equitable that a lighteous relief should be confined to the future alone. It should extend to the last few weeks, wherever strict justice may be found to call for such a vindication as was recently ordered in the same direction by the powerful voice of the Supreme Court. And if the Minister should finally refuse such revision—which I do not anticipate—l venture to propose a small subscription by the farmers and run holders of Otago to re-establish to some extent in deserving cases a decent measure of justice to those who have been so unmercifully handled. It will at least serve to mark our emphatic good faith in the protests we have unitedly made. But I dont think it will be necessary. A lot of this wretched money has been improperly come by, and I don’t believe this Minister or any other will consent to soil his official fingers permanently with it. WiTit regard to a few of your correspondents who have honestly disagreed with my letters, I haven’t a word to say; I dare say my advocacy has been poor and faulty in some respects, but I hope that in others it has not been without usefulness. I should however, like, with your permission, to add that the lion. Mr Nosworthy made it veryclear indeed to us that he is really a farmer himself (I find, in fact, with some surprise, that ho is a quite unusually keen and expert one), and that he shares with us as such the inevitable troubles —even the rabbit troubles —of these anxious times. I think farmers should know that. And if, finally, I may be allowed one word of sincere gratitude for the extreme kindness tendered to me in Ranfurly yesterday, as well as for Hie valued offers of co-opera-tion made by such honourable opponents (in other respects) as Messrs MacManus and Boreham, I think 1 may promise that your readers and yourself will now be spared, at my hands at least, the inflictions which have excited the unsympathetic sarcasms of “Oivis,” and which other readers must have found so distressingly out of proportion to the far more distracting troubles under which our poor torn old planet is struggling to-dav. —I am, etc., Jiliv 11. A. Dillon Bell.