The Times. Published on Tuesday and Friday Afternoons. TUESDAY, JUNE 21, 1921. FARMERS IN CONFERENCE.

Franklin Times, Volume 9, Issue 643, 21 June 1921, Page 6

The Times. Published on Tuesday and Friday Afternoons.

TUESDAY, JUNE 21, 1921. FARMERS IN CONFERENCE.

"We nothing extenuate, nor aught set down in malice."

The annual conference of the Farmers' Union, the only comprehensive organisation we have with any pretence to speak for the primary producers of the Dominion, is always an important function. We congratulate the delegates from the branches upon the great advance of the general tone of the debates, and the. improvement in the methods of handling the remits that came before them. In the

past we have often regretfully had to diifer profoundly with many of the opinions expressed and the decisions arrived at, and it is gratifying to us, as a farmers’ organ, to find, ourselves once again in touch with what ought to become, under wise leadership, the most important and powerful association in New Zealand! There has been in the past far too great an inclination for the fanners in council to claim for themselves as a class special privilegles and onsic’eration that could not fairly be granted to any single section of the community, and we are glad this year to note a more self-reliant feeling prevailihg, < There never was a time since the Union was founded when there was greater need for careful and watchful guidance. With the

great meat producing and wool growing industries not on\y showing no profits, but staggering under losses that aggregate many miPions, and on top of it all a crushing load of taxat'on that must be met, the occasion calls for consistent effort and courageous self -sacrifice upon the part of id: sections of the community, but to

no c'ass is t h e call so urgent or so lord as it is to the man on the land, to whom th ; s fa ; r country owes, and will cor tim e to owe, its very existence. The Cabinet, an honest and well-meaning one, we believe, but a fhigulariy v-‘ A ah and inexperienced one, in regard to ias do:. Hugs with the pr‘m?.”y : ndu

which its probably benevolently meant embargoes and restrictions have done so much to injure, requires guidance and advice, and, if needs be, Stronger measures. When income falls below expenditure there is but one satisfactory remedy, whether for individuals or States, and that is economy and retrenchment. There* is no sign so far that the Government is attempting either;. If it is afraid of the | clamour of the thousands who hang upon the public purse, let it be met by a still louder and more, insistent clamour from the man on the land, who really ultimately pays for all. that the orgy of extravagant expenditure which is noticeable in every Government department shall cease. New Zealand used to vaunt that it led the States of the Empire in legislation. Now it lags behind them all in economising in administration. There is no organisation so well able to effect this purpose as the New Zealand Farmers’ Union if it will whole-heartedly bend its energies to the task. The strong .infusion of new blood in its executive leads us to hope that the <jays of fads, insistence on pettifogging trifles and class-con-sciousness are over for ever, and to believe that in the near future it will find a place in the esteem of the community it has hitherto failed to attain.