The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. THURSDAY, JULY 10, 1924. THE MAN ON THE LAND.

Southland Times, Issue 19292, 10 July 1924, Page 4

The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. THURSDAY, JULY 10, 1924. THE MAN ON THE LAND.

In another column this morning a coi«respondent, suggests that “rhyme, ridicule and plain negation will cut no ice with any earnest citizen,” and he directs our attention to this dictum, though he does not make it clear which of these three sins we have committed. Our correspondent in the first place is unsound when he declares that; earnest citizens take no notice of rhyme, ridicule or plain negation, because in putting forward that, view he dismisses the» poets, the satirists and the destructive critics all of whom have history to prove that they have been influential where earnest men are concerned. It must never be forgotten that when any proposal is putforward its first test must come at the hands of the destructive critic who uncovers} its weaknesses and launches at it the boltst of adverse argument. If the proposal cannot withstand these attacks the world is; the better for having an unsound proposal, shattered. The analytical chemist works! through destructive processes to seek the truth. When ideas are destroyed, they are unsound, but opposition does not necessarily mean a denial that there is a problem requiring solution; a refusal to take poison does not deny the existence of a disease. We are not at all certain that our correspondent has gone much further than thin declaration that certain evils exist, and herie» and there in doing these he has committed! himself to statements that are by no mean*} free from doubt. That our economic and social organisation is permanent has never been contended—the evidence every day

against it—but the acceptance of that truth does not carry with it agreement in all proposals put forward to hasten the change. Our organisation has grown out of necessity and as a result of such accidents as inventions and discoveries affecting man’s welfare. It is generally accepted that growth of population has a big influence in determining the incidence of population as between town and country, and the part played by secondary industries. The figures quoted by our correspondent to show the movement would probably be fairly well duplicated all over the world if the basis of calculation were the same. For instance Holland shows about 45 per cent, of her population in cities, but she counts those who live in towns of less than 20,000 inhabitants as rural dwellers. If New Zealand’s case were considered on the same basis, the population under urban conditions would be not more than 40 per cent.

of the whole, or less than Holland which is overwhelmingly agricultural. The decline of agriculture in Britain is attributed by the same economists in the Old Land to the efforts in the old days to stimulate it by artificial means, which took' the form of attempts to interfere with economic laws. Agriculture by itself does not support big population, which means that with every inflow of settlers for the land we must expect a measure of increase in the urban population. It must be remembered, too, that during the period in which the urban population in this country has grown farming has not declined as our correspondent’s statements would suggest. That we cannot maintain our productivity by propaganda alone is self-evident, but at the same time the man on the land wants to be extremely cautious about accepting short cuts such as Mr Stevenson has been trumpeting.