PUBLIC OPINION THE SOIL IS OUR LIFE. SALUTARY MEASURES. THE FUTURE OF FARMING.

Hokitika Guardian, 15 August 1930, Page 2

PUBLIC OPINION

THE SOIL IS OUR LIFE.

SALUTARY MEASURES.

THE FUTURE OF FARMING.

From no matter what angle tfto situation is approached the same conclusion is, of course, always arrived at—that upon primary production, the development of the wealth-producing resources of the land, New Zealand s prosperity is essentially dependent. Decreased values lor exports point the necessity lor the counter-cflect of increased production to balance tire scale and if costs can be diminished in the primary industries so much the hotter is the chance ol commanding expoit markets and of deriving increased revenue from overseas. In respect of tli© prosperity of both primary nnct secondary industries the cost ol labour is a factor, and the cost of laboui reflects the cost of living. For a country which can produce -so much from tire soil the cost of living in New Zealand, like the cost of Government, is higher than it should be.- Otago Dailv Times.”

We are not, only 'dependant on overseas investors for loans that have been excessive ill tlines ol prosperity, but we are dependant of OitJ* whole (?»- nrimic Well-being on world iiloviMUetlts of prices which we are jjoWerfesH to control. If that precariousness of KeW Zealand's fortunes could always be remembered when prices are good, causing a limit to be set on both public and individual spending in the expectation of different conditions to come, we should feel less the effects of times like the present when they cease to favour us. till that wisdom is learned, setbacks'to our well-being will occur at inter’:ds, as they have done in the past, the main security for our general prosperity being that the world will always rerpiir egoods for food and Nothing, which make our main exports. 'l'lio necessity for restriction which the Pud get proposes has not come sud-denly.—-Dunedin “Star.”

Lord Bledisloe is a firm believer in the “magic of ownershp”, as a stimulus t(Y 'the productivity And profit-earn-ing capacity of’ agricultural land. This of 'necessity implies’-the deatli of the landlord-tenant system. Agricultural co-operation is, he considers, the one effective means of. reducing the disparity! between the''price received by the producer and tliati paid by tivcohstfmer, which ife at the root of the problem, and he sees “no reason whatever \vliy -a 1 Socialistic Gorernmeht, • With the syfnpathy of at least two-thirds of ' its J-political opponents shdiild not develop oil a large scale so-called occupying' ownership and its inevitable concomitant co-operation, and thus pull the agricultural industry out of ' 'the slough of depression into which it has sunk,” Mr Snowden's proposals do not come up to the formula of Lord Bledisloe, but the co-operative principle is contained in the,creation of a special class of allotments for soil able.unemployed woraers, .ahd in the scheme for agricultural marketing. -—I “Otago Daily Times.”