Readers' Opinions

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19364, 30 June 1937, Page 12

Readers' Opinions

Letters to tho Editor.

Lottors intended for publication should bo brief and confined to subjects of general public interest. The name and address of correspondents should be enclosed, not necessarily for publication, but as evidence of good faith. Labour’s Farm Policy Sir-May I have space to endeavour to draw from Mr. A. G. Hultquist, member for the Bay of Plenty, a statement of the Labour Party's policy on the land question. Many small farmers, among others, gave the Labour Party their support in the hope that something would be done about increasing the population of the rural ditsricts by land subdivision. Writers in the Standard, the Labour organ, seem to take it for granted that the days of the ‘individualist’ are numbered. Any large estates that are settled in future, wilL be settled, according lo these writers, on the Russian system of collectivist farming. The position as I see it is this. The Labour Party could not have carried the polls without the small farmers’ voles; and although the party is quite entitled to try this socialistic experiment, before it does so it should tell the small farmer before next elections, that it is relying on his vote to enable the party to carry it out. To do so might not be politics, but it would be cricket, and Mr. Iluitquist has the name of playing fair. If politics is going to win, it would nay the large station owners to cut up their stations now, or they may find that the station homestead with its promised “amenities” such as subsidised electric power, metalled roads and subsidised fertilizing facilities, may prove to be the nucleus of the collectivist village, once the station is taxed into the Government's arms. My advice to the small farmer is to have his own party, not Nationalist, not Labour, nor another, but his own. The tail might quite easily wag the dog. If the member for Gisborne should see this before Mr. Iluitquist, his views on the matter would no doubt be welcomed by many of vour readers. —Yours etc.. COLIN CLOUT.