THE Wairarapa Age WEDNESDAY, MAY 27, 1936. YOUNG FARMERS’ WEEK.

Wairarapa Age, 27 May 1936, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age WEDNESDAY, MAY 27, 1936. YOUNG FARMERS’ WEEK.

General and hearty support should be given by the people of Masterton to the proposals advanced at the meeting of the Masterton Chamber of Commerce yesterday by Mr. E. M. Hodder, and approved by the Chamber, regarding the Young Farmers’ Week at the Solway Showgrounds from June 8 to June 13. The organisation of Young Farmers’ clubs —a first-class movement of its kind—is already well advanced in the Wairarapa and is now extending into other parts of the North Island. It has for some years past been developed on a considerable scale in the South Island. The movement is well calculated to elevate standards, not only of farming, but of citizenship from the broadest standpoint, and has strong claims to the sympathy and encouragement of people in town and country. The clubs are a very valuable means of conveying vocational instruction and of bringing young farmers into touch with modern scientific methods and progress. At the same time, the activities of the clubs are of a kind to develop individual initiative and character and generally to broaden the outlook of their menjbers. As inhabitants of a town associated closely with rural industry and joined in mutual interdependence with those engaged in it, the people of Masterton should take the very keenest interest in this fine movement. From that standpoint, the occasion of the camp to be held at Solway next month plainly is an opportunity of which the most should be made. A number of practical proposals were made yesterday which no doubt can be amplified in some particulars. The opportunity should be welcomed, not only of extending a friendly welcome to the lads in camp and of contributing to their entertainment, but of doing something to build up the understanding between town and country which is needed everywhere, and nowhere more than in a country like New Zealand. THE PATRIOTIC ASSOCIATION.

Although it is now presenting its twentieth annual report, the Wairarapa Patriotic Association is far from having reached an end of its useful and helpful career. To a great extent the report which is summarised in our ■ news columns to-day covers ground that is familiar, but the praiseworthy : standards of administration that have been established l - in the past evidently are being well-maintained. For a good “many years now the capital funds of the association have been diminishing year by year and this, of course, must continue, but thanks to prudent economy ’in administration substantial benefits are still being conferred on the ex-soldiers and their dependants for whom the fund was raised. Taking account of the extraordinarily difficult economic conditions through which the Dominion has been passing, returned soldier borrowers have set a commendably high standard in the repayment of advances and, as the repor: records, the percentage of actual bad debt cases is small. It may be !»oped that generally ’improving economic conditions will lighten in some treasure the problems still facing the association and those whom it was established to benefit. The fact appears in any case that the operations of the association are being carried on, as they hive been in the past, in a manner creditable to those by whom the fund is administered and to all but an inconsiderable proportion of those who have been assisted.