THE EXPLOITED FARMER.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 13 January 1914, Page 2

THE EXPLOITED FARMER.

(To the Edito-). Sir, Your correspondent "Agrieola" seems very grieved because many Wellington citizens are "degenerates." Now, I quite agree with him: they "are - ' degenerates ! Economic pressure lias compelled many of them to become physical degenerates, just as the same unyielding law has forced the small farmer to* become an intellectual degenerate. The physical degenerate is often compensated by an active brain; and the difference between an active brained Wellingtonian and an intellectually degenerate '"'cocky' is that the former tlnnks for himself, while the hitter reads the Dominion! Js T ow there is one common cause which leads to these two extremes. It is land monopoly. "Agricola." thinks that "the true interest of i..e

workers is to work for the farmer.'' I should imagine that the common sense of both "cookies" and workers ought to make them ask themselves.: Why shouldn't we work for "Ourselves" and receive "all" we earn? The town worker has begun to ask himself this question, but the intellectually degenerate farmer is still groping in the dark. The small farmer works from 4 a.m. till 7 p.m. on seven days a week. Eor whom? For land speculators, transportation companies and commercial combines, with their ever-increasing prices exacted for land, tools, ciulit, transportation and household supplies. After he has paid these, has enough to eke out an existence for himself and family. Every tliinkiug man is familiar with th intolerable results of this pernicious system of exploitation. In order to hand over to these useless parasites, who fatten 011 communitycreated values, two-thirds of the immense wealth wliieh labour uroduces, the great majority of the small farmers of .New Zealand are heavily mortgaged; the farm labourers are paid tlie lowest wages of any workers m the country. and the farmer has, in many instances, to resort to child slavery. This is the result of Mr Massey's famous "freehold.' This is the result of twenty years of "democratic"' legislation. And yet our thick-headed "Agricola'' goes -down to Wellington at the behest of the.-c "patriots"—the shipping con; panics, the land monopolists, and the money-lords,-and does their dirty work for them so that they may exploit him still further. Isn't it wonderful? Isn't it marvellous? The townworker of to-day was the country worker of ten years a»'o. He has discovered the hollowness and fraud of slaving to death for an existence. Perhaps some day "Agricola" may come to the same conclusion. "Agricola" assumes that" these workers are his enemies. They are his fellow-slaves, if he could only sec it. Neither "Reformers" nor Liberals will help him. There is little to choose between them, for the;\ both pander to the exploiters. But if "Agricola'" "could" remove blind prejudice from his mind, he would discover that there is a real party who "is" fighting for him; and that is the SocialDemocratic party. (let its literature—and think.—Yours, etc., E. S. YOUNG. Levin, Jan. 11, 1914.