The Country Quota

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22520, 30 September 1938, Page 12

The Country Quota

In his address at Tai Tapu, the Minister for Public Works answered a question about the country quota with two statements, neither of which, closely examined, is at all sufficient. "The Labour Government," he said, "is not "worrying itself a scrap about the country " quota." Since a new Parliament is about to be elected under an unchanged electoral law, the reply need mean no more than that possible changes have no present interest for the Government. But they have a very real interest for the electorate. If the Government had any intention of abolishing or reducing the country quota, if it were even inclined to consider abolition or reduction, such support as it still may count upon in the rural constituencies would dwindle to vanishing point. But . this possibility cannot be left out of account. If the Labour Party were to secure a narrow majority at the polls—and a narrow majority must represent the height of its own best hopes—it would certainly be a majority won by the urban vote; and the following election would hold no possibility of success whatever, unless the desperate electoral remedy of abolishing the quota could promise it. The Minister's second statement was that the Government would not "sneak on the farmers," if it were going to abolish the quota, but would " tell them." But to tell them when they could no longer effectually protest or protect themselves would be nothing better than cynical candour. The only assurance of any value to rural constituencies is an assurance, now, that the Labour Partv will in no circumstances abolish the country quota. The Minister for Public Works has said something that stops short of that.