CO-OPERATION PLEA

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 837, 4 December 1929, Page 10

CO-OPERATION PLEA

LORD BLEDISLOE REVIEWS AGRICULTURE STATE LEASES SUGGESTED A vigorous review of the position of British agriculture, “more depressed than it has been since the early ’nineties of the last century,” was published in the “Spectator” by Lord Bledisloe shortly before the announcement of his appointment as GovernorGeneral of New Zealand--11l this article, copies of which arc now in Auckland, Lord Bledisloe claims that the heavy industries of cities and coalfields are flagging sadly for want of trade. "The World Economic Conference of 1927 proclaimed the essential interdependence of agriculture, industry and commerce,” he says. This "interdependence” lias been sadly wanting in Great Britain since the middle of the last century, but its necessity must come to be increasingly recognised if the non-agricultural industries of the country are to regain some measure of their earning capacity. “They must look for their custom more largely than in the past to the home agricultural population and the latter on their part can only supply such custom if their purchasing power is enhanced by the reasonable prosperity of their own industry. HELP THEMSELVES

“It is said, and with truth, that ‘the farmers must help themselves,’ and that it is futile to look now to any Government to provide relief for agricultural ills by placing a tariff or other restriction on imported food. “It has to be recognised that our agricultural land, for its quality and accessibility to markets, is the cheapest in the whole world, and that the price of food commodities (mainly from other countries) sold in our markets is relatively high and consequently induces those countries to send them here in ever-increasing quantities and at St profit to themselves.

“These reflections should convince even the most superficial student of our agricultural problem that, if there is little or no profit to the home agricultural producer, even when the whole burden of local taxation is lifted from his land, there is far too big a gap between the price which the producer receives and that which the consumer pays, and that gap can only be effectively bridged by widespread co-operation, not merely in the sale of produce but in the purchase of raw materials, in road and rail transport, and in credit facilities.” “MAGIC OF OWNERSHIP”

Continuing, Lord Bledisloe claims that the best of fertilisers is not comparable with the “magic of ownership,” as a stimulus to productivity. There is no reason, he thinks, why a Socialistic government should not develop on a large scale so-called “Occupying Ownership and its inevitable concomitant, co-operation, and if they are inclined to boggle at a multiplication of freeholders as being contrary to the socialistic creed, it would be quite easy to take large areas of suitable land into government ownership, after paying its full commercial value, and then let it out in smaller areas on long leases of 999 years. This would have all the value of a freehold interest to a genuine and industrious farmer, but would enable the Government, by virtue of a covenant* to recover full ownership in the national interest in the event of flagrantly bad farming in days to come. The co-operative system if properly developed would put a stop to the killing competition which now exists among farmers, would destroy the cruelly unfair “rings” now formed among dealers and would effect a greater and much-needed uniformity of agricultural output.