Patea & Waverley Press WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1928 DRIFT TO THE CITIES.

Patea Mail, Volume XLIX, 21 November 1928, Page 2

Patea & Waverley Press WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1928 DRIFT TO THE CITIES.

pHIOK to the recent general elections the ,Socialistic Labour Party had been talking much of the numbers said to be “driven oft” the laud, there is, ol course, the substratum ol truth that a drift to the cities is found in New Zealand, the same as in several other countries. Where the party is wrong isu in ascribing party political action as the cause of this movement of population. They arc also wrong in the careless way in which they present figures to prove that the Cloverninent is responsible. At various times the speakers for the party have said that in the last live years, there has been a decrease in the number of those employed on farms oil 13,000, IS,ODD,-. 21,000, and 25,000. With such discrepancy in the figures there cannot be much reliance placed on the statements made. Their method has been to select figures from a table published in the statistical report of the Agricultural and Pastoral Department. This table is for 10 years, .1017-10 to 192627v The figures Sn this table show thaf in the first Jive years the .number ordinarily employed on farms shows an increase of 15,840, and in the second five-year period a decrease of 13,581. In order to make political capital out of this, the Socialist Party deals only with the last half of this table, and ignores the first half,-which shows the increase, as if it were not there. That is clearly a political trick and not a proper way of dealing with statistics. Taken as a whole this fable of figures shows that the movement of population after the war was back In the farms, which had been depleted, and afler a lime a recurring drift from the farms to the towns and cities. This is just what we would have expected. The movement to the urban centres is a strong pull, and could only be suspended for a lime by a special demand such as the aftermath of the war presented. It is not only in New Zealand, but in Australia. Clreal Prilain, America, and other countries, we find the same tendency. To charge the Reform Dovcmment with driving people off the land because such movement of population is witnessed in our Dominion is in our opinion a quite ridiculous assumption. The National Oily Dank of New York publishes monthly a very informative bulletin, and in the issue Tor August, .1928, we get the following description of how population shifts about in the great Republic. These figures are supplied by the Department of Agriculture:— 1922: From farms to cities, 2,000000; to farms, 880,000; net move-

ment to cities, 1,120.000. 1924; J'Vom farms to cities, 2,075,000; to farms, 1,390,000; net movement lo cities, 679,000. 1925; From farms to cities. 11)00,000; to farms, 1,066.000; net movement to cities, 834,000. 1926: From farms to cities, 2,155,000; to farms, 1,135,000; net movement to cities, 1,020,000. 1927: From farms to cities, 1,978,000; to farms, 1,374,000; net movement to cities, 604,000. To summarise these figures we find that in the five years given there was a movement of 10,108,000 to the cities and large towns from the farms. The numbers who went on to farms were 5,851,000, and the net exodus in the five years into the cities was 4,257,000. To put it another : Way, nearly twice as many drifted city-ward as went in the opposite direction. This American publication says: ‘Such changes are always occurring with important numbers of people constantly moving to and from the farms. The changes most readily made are those by young people, unencumbered, and making their first choice of an occupation, and these are an army in themselves.”