PRIMARY PRODUCERS AND CONSCRIPTION

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 200, 13 May 1918, Page 7

PRIMARY PRODUCERS AND CONSCRIPTION

Sir,—Our country is being fnced with enormous liabilities in the near future. How do we propose to me'et them? We /export no manufactured articles, but instead import immense quantities; also ■pro import all our raw sugar and iron, and lately oven large quantities of timber, coal, and wheat, which we once ■used to _ export. All our exports worth mentioning are the primary products of our pastoral and agricultural land, therefore our salvation must como through our saccessful worlring of the land, and wo must very largely increase that export to meet our enormously increased expenditure. Nothing without- labour! Which-brings us to the crux of the matter, for we are sending out of the coun-

try the very men we need, and instoad of increased wo are now faced with greatly decreased production. A,case in point: On a pastoral farm of rough, hilly, but valuable land, tho owo etock has fallen from COOO to 4000 within tho last twelve months, for want of snitaWo men wfio .havo been conscripted. To carry on the wnr wo need wool and fiozon moat in largo increasing quantities, and no country approaches ours in the quantity and quality of these fighting necessities, produced in proportion to its population.

Wo can spare our city men, even our Email agricultural nnd dairy farmeo's, as tho men past ago and tho boys under age and tho women can '"carry on" there, but we cannot spare the experienced working owners, tho managers nnd head 6hepherds of our back country sheop farms. If they go abroad, down goes the production of wool And frozen meat straight away. We ought to keep them, even against the;.- will, for the Empire needs them here. Send to tho war some thousands of such men as these, RK<i tho Empire will lose ten times their value in the loss of absolutely newesary products for the war, ar.d "W here will go far to ruin ourselves.

America has hundreds of thousands of yoiini Tinrnnrriwl moil, with nine Months' training; let her hurry them up t<s do a littlo belated of her share. I see her War "apartment announces, April 2fl, that "the casualties in the American forces in France since Amerioa entered the war are more than 3000 including 274 marines." A" year's record! And our briiro Httle country suffered more cnsimltiw in less timo.

I do not urge Hi", exemption of rich run-holders who keep managers nnd a staff of men (and many of theso havo KOst gallantly voiuuttered), but the really hard-working- ov/rer?, managers, aud hend ebepherds a:id c.ittlonK.n of our tip-conntry farms are essential, and no morn should be a'.lov.-c4 to leave tho country.—l nm, etc., J. C. CAIRNS. Havciock N., May 10, 19)8.