FARMERS AND POLITICS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3672, 29 July 1924, Page 32

FARMERS AND POLITICS.

DOMINION PRESIDENT’S VIEWS. At the annual conference of the New Zealand Farmers' Union, which opened in Wellington on Tuesday, the president (Mr W. J. Poison) said that he was convinced that there could be no great progress in their organisation unless they took a more active interest in pclitioal affairs. ‘Just now, ’ he said, “with the prospect of a continuation of triangular control, we have little hope of aehievng our programme as we are at present situated. Members had an opportunity of observing last year how easily we were foiled in our attempt to get legislation for the establishment of an agricultural bank on the Statute Book, although there was no question either of its soundness or its preferability to the State advances sysem, and although a very considerable number of members of the House were in favour of it—simply because We had no representatives of our own there to insist upon the introduction of the Bill. I have no intention of dwelling on an episode that must be painful to many of us, hut the flippant treatment we received at the hands of the Government must have convinced members that our influence counts for little with the powers that be. But agricultural banking is not the only subject we feel strongly about. We are out for an immigration policy that will settle the Vacant lands of New Zealand. We want to see closer settlement so that every acre of this country will be made as highly re-

productive as is consistent with our geographical situation. “We are anxious to see taxation reduced, partly through sound and economical administration, and partly through an increase in population that will mean more shoulders to carry it. We are determined to see this country developed as it should be developed, and to set our faces against its being plunged annually further into debt because easy money is available. Let me quote again here the head of the Employers’ Federation, a strong supporter of the present Government and a director of the leading Government newspaper in New Zealand : ‘There is,’ he said some time back, in his address to the employers of New Zealand, ‘a real danger if our Government is tempted to take advantage of easy interest terms and borrow heavily for extensive new public works, that labour, which would be more safely employed in private undertakings, will be diverted to public works. The proportion of our population dependent upon the continuance of these for a living will be increased. W orks which are not an immediate necessity will be undertaken, -and when the time comes, and inevitably it will come, when borrowing has to taper off, it will be more cliincult to redistribute the population living upon public works expenditure into, natural and normal avenues of employment. “ It is evident that the danger is real, when we get such plain speaking from the Government’s strongest supporters. ” e have been asking for years for legislation in connection with shipping. Something that will provide us with a means of countering any effort of the shipping ring to put on further turns of their screw m the future. We see a prospect through the disorganisation of the existing parties of further experiments in social legislation, <a*nd a tampering with the individualistic system w, .cn has given Britain her Empire and built up these dominions. In his appreciation of the life and work of Henry Ford, recently, Robert Blatchford. the editor of Ihe Clarion, and a pillar of socialism, made the following remarkable statement: ‘A boss whose position depends on the suffrage ot hie workers is no boss; his initiative ls cramped. His inspiration is negatived by the timidity or blindness of mediocre minds. Hs plans may be disarranged or defeated by jealous rivals. His most careful calculations may be ruined by the pernicious eloquence of some hare-brained fanatic or crank We know what happens in politics and we have only too much reason to believe and to few that the same kind of thing would happen in business, were business perverted to a political form, run on democratic lines. I do not know what my old friends of the Labour Party think about these things, but that is where I stand. “ We have seen just these things happen under democratic Government no further away than Queensland. We have a duty as producers to see that they do not happen here. The Farmers’ Union has fought consistently for the development of the country on sound business lines, because we have realised that we dare not stand still, but we have not made the headway we should have made. We have succeeded certainly with marketing control, but we must see to it that the Handicaps of taxation, vexatious social legislation, shortage of labour, and loss of population through failure to insist on higher production do not rob us of the benefits of' these great reforms, and possibly turn them against us. The future is fraught with many dangers. We see every interest organised, and with men in Parliament ready to champion its cause. We see a steady drift of population townwards, and of wealth also. All over the Empire, country men, realising this, are concentratng upon political action. I declare my opinion here, that political action is as necessary to the New Zealand farmer as to any other. What form that action is to take is for you to say, but I am bound to inform you here that none of the plans we have adopted in the past have been of the slightest use.