FARMERS AND POLITICS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1445, 21 May 1912, Page 8

FARMERS AND POLITICS.

THE ACiCJRKSSIVK LABOUR AGITATOi!. The provincial orgiuii.-er of I lie New Zealaiul l-'armcr-' Union. Mr. .1. U. I'nwlff, durii!" tile course of tut addle— nl Jx'vin on Saturday, made « '"'ief inference to tiio farmer anil politic.-, tonne ])('<>}>]e. lie .-aid. urged that the union had no right to talk poiit'cs. Ue did not care what cla-s of nit-ii were brought into nil organisation, they were bound to talk politics. (Hear, hear.) At the same time until the rules of the Varmcrs' Union were altered they were debarred talking partv politics at their branch meetings or at Ilieir conferences. 'I'hero was no doubt if their mouths were to be closed against discussion on political questions which were so intricately connected wslh Ihe fanning industry, they might ns well

"put up the shutters." Touching on the graduated laud lax. Mr. Fowler remarked that tho idea of those who advocated a further step on that road was that all land from a quarter of an acre upwards should be. taxed, and Custom duties .abolished. The limit had been going down year by vear. All such legislation had to be watched by the union, which was the only organisation to-day that had the interests, of the. farmers ever before it. 11 was the onlv body to protect their interests from the agitator's demands, and from the inroads of harassing and interfering legislation. Lots of farmers wore completely ignorant of this.' Thp aggressiveness of labour grew more virulent day by dav. It was not the worker who was responsible for the present industrial unrest. It was the agitator. In this connection he incidentally mentioned the slrike at YVaihi. and asked farmers whether thev realised what Professor Mills's Unitv scheme was? Brought down to bedrock it meant that labour in >.ew Zealand was to become one organisation, and when the Farm Labourers' Union came into existence, if trouble should arise and a dispute occur, and that dispute could not be settled, the unity scheme was to be put into force. Then pverv trade in Xew. Zealand must slop work. It was to be "tools down."