LEAN TIMES AND FULL

Southland Times, Issue 19275, 20 June 1924, Page 5

LEAN TIMES AND FULL

TWELVE YEARS’ PROGRESS MECCA OF PRIMARY PRODUCERS PRIME MINISTER’S REVIEW. (Special to the Times.) PALMERSTON NORTH, June 19. Continuing to expound the doctrine he has always enunciated, that is, that taking the lean times with the full, slump with boom, and with an eye to the progress of other dominions, New Zealand is steadily approaching nationhood. The Prime Minister, at the Show banquet to-night recorded the development of the State in its various phases of activity during the twelve years that have passed .since the advent of his administration. Mr Massey did not claim that his. was the master hand that has directed the flow of the thousands of sturdy settlers from the United KingWim to its most distant outpost, or that he had summoned the forces of Nature to give up her virgin wealth to the hardy sons of the soil who had tilled the land and tended the sheep and cattle on a thousand hills, but he will be pardoned for claiming that he stood by, close at hand, helping to direct those forces into channels that were most practicable and profitable, ever watchful for individual progress and national prosperity. Especially was this so since he was raised by the people to the office of Chief Executive, just before dawn on that fateful Saturday morning early in July twelve years ago, when the results of the division having been announced Sir Thomas MacKenaie handed in the portfolio of the “Hundred Days’ Administration” facetiously referred to in the lobby gossip of the day as the ‘Top Hat Ministry.” The Prime Minister faced a distinguished gathering as he told the story, in language as simple as a school geography, of the progress of the country of his adoption. The Governor-General', a' familiar figure at producers’ gatherings, whose stay in New Zealand is now regrettably drawing to a close, had just delivered one of those speeches alternating pleasant humour with a wide knowledge of the country’s activity, which have so endeared him to the people of the Dominion, and all the available Ministers of the Crown who represent producers' constituencies were present and several distinguished representatives of foreign powers were in the gathering that filled the Manawatu Show Society’s Lecture Hall.

Seeing the new Consul-General of the United States present, one was reminded of a humourous incident associated with the first visit of his predecessor to the Manawatu Show. He had been explaining to a group of cattle men his ideas of the breeding of Holsteins and when they had dispersed, one asked another what qualifications a Consul had to discuss Holsteins, “Very good ones indeed,” said his friend, “for he is the principal breeder and President of the Holstein Association in the United States.” . From a retrospective glance over the gatherings of the past, one was assured that the present was the most representative yet held, especially as regards delegates of kindred interests attending. The city was so full of visitors that several distinguished guests have had to be billeted in hotels at Feilding, 12 miles away. A very cordial welcome was tendered Mr Massey when he rose to his feet. He has made so many public addresses lately that one w’ondered what new’ feature there was left to discuss before a gathering of producers high in the councils of their various industries, but Mr Massey touched the chords to which they most readily responded —their faith in the country. On the farm, the producer has his grouch. There is too much or too little rain, feed is poor or rank, the butter-fat returns from the. factory leave him but little margin of profit with the interest bill and the prices of implements, dairy equipment, benzine or merchandise, but when he repairs to the annual smoker at the Show in his best togs and listens to someone who knows, telling him the figures are against him, the exports are past the fifty million mark, that the quantity of butter sent overseas is a record and that their prices are beating Danish for the first time, he finds that he has left his grouch at home in the pocket of his working trousers. To the farmers Mr Massey is the man who knows. He radiates Now Zealand. He was not twelve hours in England in October last before he was telling the London Times what he told his audience to-night—that judged from any standpoint of primary production New Zealand is first. I( was he that coined the phrase, “The Dairy Farm of the Empire.” His facts and figures impress the people of Great Britain more than they do those of New Zealand, for apart from the fate that befaHs a prophet in his own country, Mr Massey is a mountain of information regarding it. Mr Massey's figures did not fall on barren soil. There were not enough of them to lay his speech open to the charge of being a statistical thesis, unlike many Members of Parliament who read a whole table of figures in the hope that the House might see the point they illustrate. He has the faculty of selecting one from this group and another from that to demonstrate and develop the lesson they teach. The exports of the country were now valued at £51,656,600, he said, and the imports at £44,401,000, a total trade of nearly £100,000,000. In twelve years the frozen meat exported had increased in value from £3,900,000 to £9,000,000, the population had increased by 300,000, wool exports had grown from £7,000,000 to nearly £11,000,000 and sheep flocks had grown by 50,000. During last year alone the number of dairy cows had grown from 633,000 to 1,248,000, butter exports had increased from £2,800,000 to £10,700,000, and cheese from £1,680,000 to £6,870,297. Mr Massey complimented the dairy farmers on their success’, having regard to the severity of the conditions under which they worked, and passed on to congratulate those concerned in the development of the honey production, which had risen from £1053 to £25,585.

The Prime Minister concluded with a hearty wish that the secondary industries would prosper in the Dominion. He was delighted with the way the primary and secondary industries were working together for their mutual benefit. Industrial establishments grew from 3524 to 4259 in twelve years, employees from 47,631 to 64,233, wages from £5,600,000 to £7,500,000, the value of the products from £31,700,000 to £74,000,000, and the value of the land and plant from £17,000,000 to £44,000,000.