FARMERS’ PROBLEM.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 365, 5 March 1932, Page 27 (Supplement)

FARMERS’ PROBLEM.

Acres of Land not Paying for Cultivation. ‘NIGGER IN THE WOODPILE." (Written for the ■■ Star ” by E. J. HOWARD., M.P.) The world is passing through a mental revolution. If one doubts that and wants some proof, travel in company with a locomotive engine driver and afterwards with a benzine bus driver. There are those who can remember the farmers who farmed the land of England; the men we came in contact with at the monthly fairs, smelling of horse and even dressed in a way that gave a distinct “farming” bearing to their personalities. To-day, unless we go to a place like Addington, it is

almost impossible to pick a farmer from any other class. The sailor, too, has altered. The coming of the motorcar, the motor ship and the aeroplane is altering the new generation and giving them a new outlook on life. Even to take the humblest walks of life, one

could in days gone by pick out the man who carried the hod of bricks to the gentleman who grouted them into the wall; the dropped shoulder, the slouching attitude and general appearance. Thirty years ago the men of England carried the mark of their various occupations with them and it was not hard for a psychologist to pick a man and classify him according to his occupation. Then our children through the “ movie ” picture are becoming more alert and know more about geography and life than their grandfathers did at an equal age. Socialist Viewpoint. Twenty years ago the Socialist said that the world was drifting towards a' state where the majority would be in bondage to the minority; that the unborn were being pledged to this minority to pay the debts of their grandfathers to the grandchildren of their creditors. When a Socialist dared to suggest that the world would have to adopt the Jewish jubilee method of wiping off the debt every fifty years, the great majority of people held up their hands in horror at such a. suggestion. Repudiation was the ugly word coined to cause people to Shudder. Today what are termed the best people, and the best people after all are only the thinking people, will readily admit that something must be done' along those lines. No one is ashamed to advocate a reduction in interest charges. We are still clinging to the idea that New Zealanders are a family unto themselves and that we must keep strictly to our obligations overseas. When Japan altered her religion and gave the people permission to widen their worship the great majority still clung to the idea of “ Shinto.” Shinto was not the deification of an individual god, but was a deification of an ideal represented by all gods. It was Japan. It was the spirit of Japan that was deified. It was something that could not be clearly defined and yet the I person who did not understand it was a poor citizen. Standards Questioned. The British people are still clinging to their Shinto, their standard, but there is a questioning of that standard now taking place mutually. Henry George tells the story of the bull that was tethered to a post in a field of grass growing almost to his knees. The bull had walked round and round the post until his head was so close that he could not reach the grass growing to his knees. And we laugh at the story. If the bull had only retraced his steps food in plenty was awaiting him. We in New Zealand have walked around and around an old idea and in a land of plenty we can’t reach the grass. And now we are fearlessly questioning this ancient old idea or ideas.

A mental revolution is taking place slowly but surely. Even an ultra optimist cannot see the end. Our ideas are based on the mental pictures that we have acquired. Dr Koo said that the Chinese could understand an Emperor. They had a mental picture of an Emperor. It was something sitting on a throne. They could almost deify their emperor because he wore a golden crown and little bells rattled and tingled when he moved. If this emperor came to their city bands played and banquets were spread for him. The best was good enough for their emperor. But the emperor has gone and democracy has taken his place. Democracy doesn’t sit on a throne. Racial Awakening. The poor Chinaman has lost his mental picture and no one has drawn one to take its place. It would have taken probably one generation to have completely altered his mental picture, but war has come. So the Chinese, too, will undergo a mental revolution. He has got to fight, and fight not for an emperor, but against an emperor for a democracy. China is the last large section of the world left for an awakening. There are, of course, very small sections here and there of native races that are still in a primitive state. But like the lion and elephant of South Africa, they are dying out or adapting themselves to the new conditions. The African kaffir is coming. Full of pep and vigour, he is challenging the new order. He is facing it and surviving. He is increasing in number. The Australian black is retreating and dying. He will not adopt the new idea. He is doomed to extinction. Other native races are going the same way. The Melanesian race is a dying race. The Polynesian race is a growing race. They are challenging the new order, but accepting it.

Th'e white people will have to look to their laurels. Tf they are to survive they must for a time untangle themselves from old ideas. Where Is the Trouble?

A speaker in Parliament said we had 43,000,000 acres of land in occupation, but 20,000,000 acres were not paying for cultivation. We have to think that problem out. We have to find out where the trouble is. The farmer says the trouble is that the wages of everyone barring the farmer are too high. Let us also think that one out. It is no good wrangling with each other and refusing to go into the question. Is wages the cause of those 20,000,000 acres not paying for cultivation ? Of- course the farmers who are working the *20.000,000 acres do not employ anyone directly. But they say the things made by highly paid labour are out of proportion to the price they obtain for the goods they, the farmers, produce. To find out if that is the nigger in the woodpile, then we must turn to a country that produces the same kind of goods with cheaper labour. We turn to South Africa, where kaffirs build the highways for 2s per day; build the railways that carry the farmers' produce t"> markets for 2s per day wages; shear the sheep and plough and har-

row and harvest the corn at Is fid per day. Ile is obedient, hard-w'orking and faithful, this kaffir brother of ours, and we should expect the white farmer of .South Africa who grows the same kind of produce as the white farmer of New Zealand to be healthy, wealthy and wise. In Same Plight. Strange to sav, under the circumstances, the same percentage of farms in South Africa are not paying for cultivation. They are nearer the market by fourteen days, they pay onethird of the freight charges on their goods that our farmers pay, yet they are in the same kind of trouble that our farmers are in. But we cannot prove the rule with one case so we must take another; Denmark then is our other example and there we find the same kind of trouble for the farmers as in New Zealand. Almost the same percentage of farms are not paying as in New Zealand. That won’t do to prove our case so we turn to America, the land of the free. But they are not’free of debt or of struggle so we find the farmers in trouble in America. In Canada also

There must be a common factor operating in these various countries. It is not high wages; our Kaffirs prove that. It is not want of co-operation; Denmark proves that. It is not want of protective tariffs because America proves that. But there is a common nigger in the woodpile of each of these countries bringing about the same results. We will get that nigger directly. For a moment we will pursue that wage fiend and see if he is the fellow. Last year we took £12,000,000 in wages away from those rendering service, so there was £12,000,000 less pioney to be spent. Payment to Unemployed. If wages were the field that was hurting the farmers, he should have been that amount to the good. But he isn’t; he is worse off than he was when the £12,000,000 was circulating. And we had created a new problem. We had 50,000 men on No. 5 scheme and no one knows the number of women and no one knows the number of boys and girls unemployed because no register is kept of women and boys and girls. We taxed the people another £2,000,000 to keep No 5 scheme

going. Was there any other way to do the job? Well, for a moment let us suppose we had taken the £14,000.000 by way of wage taxation instead of wage reduction plus taxation. We could have paid each unemployed £4 per week. They would have bought more bread, more butter, more cheese, more mutton, more beef, more wool for clothes and paid rent and gone to the pictures and bought benzine. But w'e didn’t do it that way. Value of Sovereign. We are all grumpy and all looking for that nigger in the woodpile. But when we catch sight of him now and again we are suspicious but not sure. We have fixed the length of the yardstick, the weight of the pound, the length of the mile, but the purchasing price of the sovereign has been left to a private firm to fix. In March, 1922, there met in London bankers from Africa, America, France, New Zealand and Canada. From every country where the farmers are in trouble these bankers hailed from. They formed a “ Consortium,” and that’s the name of the nigger in the woodpile.