THE SMALL FARMER.

Wairarapa Daily Times, 23 March 1935, Page 4

THE SMALL FARMER.

Speaking at the meeting of the Wairarapa Provincial Executive of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union at Masterton this week, Mr A. Ross drew attention to the position of the dairy farmer in connection with the proposed restrictions, etc., on frozen meat. Mr Ross said the injustice to the dairy farmers was a pretty cruel one. It. was accentuated by the fact that the meat companies eventually got the benefit. That was where the shoe pinched. He said that if the meat had not eventually been released he would not have felt so sore about it. It is unfortunate that legislation dealing with agricultural and pastoral matters, where frozen meat or butter are concerned, hits the smaller man the hardest. The small farmer has suffered heavily already . as the result of the ultra-socialistic legislation which has been brought into existence by the present Government. The wealthy farmer obtains all the benefits, and the .struggling farmer receives all the kicks. There is an urgent demand that assistance be given to the small and needy farmer, not by a policy of repudiation and the treating of covenants as mere “scraps of paper,” but by a genuine effort to help the man on the land, whose outlook to-day is as gloomy as it was at the start of the slump. The increase in the exchange rate, and practically the whole of the other legislation dealing with farm problems has been for the benefit of the wealthy man, and the dairy farmer in particular is worse off than before.