PARTY POLITICS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 72, Issue 6240, 10 June 1946, Page 5

PARTY POLITICS

VIEWS OF FEDERATED FARMERS’ CHAIRMAN “I am very much against our ever becoming a party political organisation,” said Mr H. J. McLeavey in his presidential address at the interprovincial conference of Federated Farmers at Wanganui. He was referring to the attitude of Federated Farmers to politics in general. “Party politics,” said Mr McLeavey, “should have no place in Federated Farmers, but you will find that most of the questions with which we have to deal will be political ones. The question of the control and of the sale of our produce is a political question; the question of taxation is political; the question—a particularly vexed one—of hospital rating is a highly political one, both in local and general politics. We cannot avoid taking a stand on these matters, and we must take our stand irrespective of what party is in power. “The Farmers’ Union in its history has had to fight many Governments, and I have no doubt that Federated Farmers will have to do the same in its history. There is nothing to be afraid of or ashamed of in this, and there is nothing dishonourable about it—in fact, it is what is expected of the organisation.”