THE FARMER AND THE WAR

Te Aroha News, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5501, 18 June 1917, Page 3

THE FARMER AND THE WAR

A Southern writer thus “ rubs it iu ’’ to the farmer :—Some of the breed the other day suggested that Americans should be asked to finish the war instead of sending away more New Zealanders—especially food producers. Why not ask the Government to introduce' a few thousand Chows to take over the farms and make butter so that farmers so-called could go to the front ana fight for their own country ? It was a Taranaki Chow who first taught the New Zealaud farmers how to make butter on a commercial scale. Ever since the war started the mau who calls himself a farmer, but who usually sits on the fence and leaves God to do the farming, has been fighting the Government and refuses to produce tho kind of food that is needed. Here is something about his butter over which he makes a quite unnecessary

fuss. Regarding wliafc the soldier gets iu return for working all hours for five shillings a day, here is a list made out by oue of the meu who is lighting for the the farmer's existence: —We got every 24 hours S oz of bread, about oz of jam. a small piece of cheese, a plate of stew, about A oz of bacon, some hard biscuits, aud sometimes a little tiu meat. Iu addition, we received 1 lb of a hrctich mixture called butter, divided between 10 men, every three days. Still, we have nothing to growl about. But it does make a soldier think when ho comes home to tiud hundreds of dairy farmers making thousands of tons of butter. They are being exempted from military service, bccauso they are supposed to be feediug the troops, when, in fact, the butter all goes to the well-to-do people of England. The soldiers get none of it, except in hospital.” How is that for the farmer getting exemption because he is feediug the soldiers? Why don’t the Government take over all the farms and work them under military control with the labour of the rejected thousands of men in the Domiuion i The’-e is uo great art about farming, ns anyone knows who lias seen as many years gin agricultural districts as 1 have seen during tifty-three years in New Zealand.