"OTHER METHODS"

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 116, 13 November 1939, Page 6

"OTHER METHODS"

•The Prime Minister is annoyed that anyone should suggest that his recent reference to "other methods of doing the job" was an implied threat of farm control. We fail to see why he should be. The statement was: "If private enterprise cannot provide the production that is necessary for us to carry out our promise to Britain, the Government will have seriously to consider other methods of doing the job." This«*is not a direct threat of collectivised farming, but "other methods" is a term into which any meaning can be read, and the farmers are not being swayed by political bias if they give to it the meaning which past Government policy has usually attached to it. Private enterprise in general]and the banks in particular have been told in the past that the Government would use "other methods" if they did not "do the job." Such hints of Government pressure or Government intervention are not helpful. They are disturbing, and when they are made and call forth protests, the result cannot be described as due to agitation based on political bias. We do not believe that any Government in New Zealand would be so foolish as to attempt farm control at the present juncture; but farmers are uneasy concerning the form ancl duration of control applied to the

produce which comes off the farm. They know that further measures are unnecessary if the fruits of production are beyond their control. In these circumstances, a responsible speaker should not be surprised or indignant if the people affected read into vague phrases a threat of what they fear.