THE FARMERS’ POSITION

Southland Times, Issue 23767, 15 March 1939, Page 3

THE FARMERS’ POSITION

To The Editor

Sir, —Usually a Tory will snipe at you from behind a hedge. I offer my congratulations to A. H. McLean for his unusual display of courage. Candidly I am surprised that your correspondent dissociates himself from Mr Johnston s

remarks. I accept his assurance, of course, but when that woeful monthly anthem is being rendered by the “super-moaners” of the Farmers’ Union, Mr McLean’s voice is always heard in it. I regret to know your correspondent has no confidence in me. I do not know Mr McLean personally, therefore I am not in a position to know whether his unsolicited judgment is of any value or consequence. I have one comforting thought, however. There are over eight thousand of my constituents who do have confidence in me. I polled, last election, the highest number of votes of any political, candidate in the history of Invercargill. I want to assure Mr McLean that the overdraft he now complains of would be nothing to the one that would be necessary if his “political star” had been in power. I am delighted to know that the farmers are having a holiday. I hope it will be a longer one next year. —Yours, etc., W. C. DENHAM. March 14, 1939. To The EditorSir,—The papers are usually full. of farmers’ complaints. There is a section in Southland which has acquired the habit of “grousing.” Some farmers really think they are the only people who work, that they are the only folk who count.

The rest of the community are all living on the hard working farmer. I am beginning to think and wonder if the boot is not on the other foot. Pre-sent-day farmers, at least many of them, have more holidays than anybody else, and the farmer is a heavier drain on the public revenue than all the rest of the community put together. Talk about sustenance. The farmer has more to say against sustenance than anybody. Subsidies and grants are made to farmers at every turn, millions of pounds have been paid to men by the State to drain and clear farm lands. Free use of the railway to haul limo as well as other transport concessions is made. A State agricultural service is provided free. Special farms and agricultural colleges are established all for the purpose of helping and advising the farmer.

There is a special scheme to provide free labour, financed from the unemployed funds. The Government is now guaranteeing a fixed price for dairy produce, and if this price is not realized in London the difference is made up out of the public purse. The Government takes the responsibility of .marketing his produce for him, and in addition provides an overdraft at 1-J per cent, to dairy factories to enable them to make the monthly pay-out to their suppliers. The Government has written off some £7,000,000 of debt to the farmer. Heaven only knows what other special privileges are afforded. The rest of the people, even the despised public works employees, are taxed to provide these concessions to the farmer. Mr Semple’s men are busy making roads to enable the farmer to travel 200 miles or more, in his flash car, leaving his wife or some poorly paid youth at home to do the real work, while the “backbone of the country” is railing against the Government and crying about the shortage of labour. I think it is high time the Government had a round up of the “loafer farmers,” and made them do some work on the farm.—Yours, etc., ONE WHO HAS TO PAY FOR IT. March 14, 1939.

To The Editor

Sir, —In your issue of March 10 appears a letter over the name of W. C. Denham in which he sets out to prove that farmers are prosperous. He gives as the reason for his deductions that 120 farmers have taken a holiday at Stewart Island at a cost of £3 15/- a head and that another 120 are going at a later date. We have somewhere about 4000 farmers in Southland and six per cent, have been able to take a week’s holiday; or, in other words, sixty out of every 1000 farmers have been able to take a week’s holiday. If this is what Mr Denham calls prosperity, then heaven help the farmers. I note that Mr Denham suggests that you, Mr Editor, may be able to help Mr Johnston with an explanation. In my opinion there is no need for you to do so, but there is urgent need to help Mr Denham to understand plain and undeniable facts when they are placed before him by the president of the provincial executive. I would suggest that through the medium of your valuable paper you give support to the starting of a school during the recess of Parliament for the purpose of educating members of Parliament and prospective members to be a little more land-minded. I am sure the provincial executive of the Farmers’ Union would be only too pleased to draw up a list of the subjects to be studied. For and on behalf of the 94 per cent, of the farmers who did not get a holiday.—Yours, etc., D.H. March 14, 1939.