FARM NOTES

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume XXIV, 23 April 1927, Page 4

FARM NOTES

JOTTINGS FROM THE NORTH. A QUESTION OF FARMING. (Our Own Correspondent). WELLINGTON, April 20. The Government Statistician, one of the most capable and independent departmental heads to be found in the Dominion, has been stepping on the sensitive corns of the North Island farmers. In his recent report upon “Rural Holdings,” people who have' taken the trouble to read this very interesting document have come across a paragraph which suggests an odious comparison between North Island and South Island husbandry. “The average farm is considerably smaller in the North Island than in the South Island,” this paragraph runs. “The area of pool', high country in the South makes' this inevitable, though a continuance of good farming in the South and bad farming (impoverishment of pastures) in the North might do something to redress the balance, particularly, if in the markets of the world sheep products were to appreciate relatively to cow products.” Mr Fraser is not careless of the feelings of the North Island farmers; he wraps up his meaning in delicate phraseology; but his obvious criticism is that the farmers in the North, usually more favored by Nature, are not farming so well as those in the South. The fact is plain enough for anyone who has travelled through the two islands to see and it carries its own significance. The habit of hard work is more general in the South than it is in the North.

FARMERS’ UNION CRUSADE. Mr AV. J. Polson, the Dominion President of the New Zealand Farmers' Union, is carrying his evangel of drastic public retrenchment, tariff reform, land settlement, labor sanity, and rural credits through the length and breadth of the country districts preparatory, it is assumed, to a descent upon the cities. Everywhere he is finding attentive and appreciative audiences, and is doing much to awaken an apathetic public to its vital interests. “There must be drastic economy in public expenditure,” a summary of one of Iris passages runs in a provincial paper. “We paid £1,914,000 in salaries in 1914. We paid £4,352,403 in 1926. Wo have increased our railway expenditure from £3,004,180 in 1914 to £5,980,798 in 1926; education from £1,420,941 to £3,809,406 in the same period; and Post and Telegraph from £1,170,882 to £2,406,791. What justification is there, for example, for an increase in post and telegraph salaries from £699,245 in 1914 to £1,825,883 to-day? We are certainly not getting three times as good a service.” Neither Ministers nor partisans are challenging Mr Polson’s assertions, and even the secretary of the Reform League, the custodian of the reputation of the Government, remains silent. The president of the Farmers’ Union, indeed, appears to have the platform all to himself, and he certainly is making use of his opportunity.

FUTURE OF DAIRY CONTROL. Unde this head, the Evening Post, which, as acknowledged in these columns before, has done its best , to maintain a judicial attitude throughout the “absolute control” and “price fixing” controversies, hints at the problems now confronting the dairy industry. “Mr 'Stronach Paterson, the Government’s representative on the Dairy Board, has resigned,” it says. “The fact may be regarded as a victory by that section of the Board and the producers which still adheres to what has proved to be the disastrous policy of price-fixing. Mr Paterson no doubt was a thorn in the flesh of certain members of the Board of whose business tactics and strategy he disapproved, believing them to be unwise and dangerous. But so they proved, and so the Board, by six to three, admitted when it abandoned them But is the resignation of Mr Paterson to be followed by harmony on the Board, increased returns to producers, and restoration of friendliness of the British provision merchants and retailers? We venture to lielieve that no one would be more pleased than Mr Paterson if these were the results of his action. What will be difficult for the Government is to fill his place, for if any but a perfectly plastic successor is appointed it is difficulty after Mr Paterson’s experience, to see how smooth working of control of New Zealand dairy produce is to be secured to the mutual advantage of producer, distributor, and consumer." The Dominion, apparently having backed the wrong horse, is not discussing the matter.

“EVIDENCE.” One of th? unworthy features >f t' controversy going on in connection with the butter industry just now is the acceptance by many people of bald statements made by Mr William Grounds as “evidence.” At the last meeting of

the Dairy Board, from which, of course the representatives of the recognised Press were excluded, Mr Grounds made several statements reflecting upon Mr Stronach Paterson’s loyalty to his colleagues on the Board’s London Agency. They were simply statements, unsupported by any other evidence, and yet they were broadcasted in the Board’s official publication and accepted in some quarters as proof of the chairman’s charges. As a matter of fact they were the merest assertions, which no legal tribunal would have taken into account under any circumstances, and yet quite a number of bodies associated in one way or another with the dairy industry have demanded Mr Paterson’s resignation from the London Agency on tho strength of the “evidence produced by Mr Grounds.” Mr Grounds produced no evidence, but in the absense of his opponent reflected upon the candour and good-faith of that gentleman in a. way that could not be too frankly reprobated.