DRIFT TO THE TOWNS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5081, 28 January 1927, Page 4

DRIFT TO THE TOWNS.

CONSIDERED OPINIONS. VIEWS BY EDUCATIONALISTS. In the November issuq of “ The New Zealand Highway ” (the. monthly jiurnal of the Workers’ Educational Association) appears a symposium on the “ Dri'ft to Towns and Cities,” contributed by some of our best known educationists apd economic experts. It appears that in the September “ Highway,” Professor A. G. B, Fisher, in a treatise on this highly important and controversial subject, expressed the opinion that “ instead df deploring the urban dri'ft, we. ought to rejoice at the Evidence which it affords, that the primary necessities, of the whole population can be supplied by a steadily diminishing proportion of the people.” It was only natural that such an view, and an opinion so diametrically opposed to all preconceived ide.ns on this problem of modern civilisation, should meet with keen criticism. The November issue of thft “ Highway ” contains a number o’fXirticles by doctors and professors who by learned arguments in economy, psychology and sociology are endeavouring to show the original author the error of his, ways.

MnW. A. Sheet, 8.A., L.L.8., can see ill urban drift problem which might, by an adverse .turn of our markets, be speedily rendered a very acute one. At the same time, be holds that under our present land system any apparent increase in the prosperity of the primary industries brings little improvement in the general conditions of active primary producers. Too often, he says, improved prices for primary products result merely in a rise in land values and so increase the .amount of rent and interest paid, and the real remuneration of the active, producer will settle down near the old level. Professor J. B. Condliffe puts forward a sound and highly convincing argument why -New Zealand should encourage the primary rather than the secondary industries. He can see ample indications that countries in Eiirone and the Far East are Entering an era of extraordinarily increasing production. He out that 'the. industrial recovery of Britain and Germany, and the new methods of mass production in the United States, will make, it very difficult for local industries to compete op anything like equal terms. “Denmark,” he says, “was wise enough to resist temptation to become another Belgium,” and we, feel with the learned professor that New Zealand could follow no better example.

Mr H. Miller, M.A., endeavours to prove that the townward drift in New Zealand is due to acts of government rather than economic causes. He maintains that our secondary industries, which provide work for approximately 80 000 workmen, have been built up by protectionist legislation. Further, he says, almost 79,000 people are employed by the State itsel'f, and these two sets of people With their dependants, he calculates to represent between three and four hundred thousand. Mr Miller also includes a third class df people—those living on invested capital. He traces many of the causes of the urban drift back to bad government, such as our old land

laws, which encouraged land aggregation"; our methods of raising money for war purposes (borrowing from the stay-at-homes instead of taxing thefn) ; land speculation, and what he calls “the present banking conspiracy, connived at by the Government, which, he alleges, enables private banks to keep up the price of moneys so that original shareholdets get their capital back in dividends every six years. Dr. I. L. G. Sutherland sehs in the townward dri'ft a psychological and sceialogical phenomenon rather than an economic problem. He explains that attempts have been made to account for the growth of large towns on the basis not of economic necessity, but of human gregarious,ness. This gregarious tendency, he says, has been so stimulated that men and women, out df employment, in declining work in the country, give all manner of reasons for their refusal save the true one, which is hatred of isolation." This, writer suggests, however that wireless and television may be able to satisfy mental gregariousness, and so make the physical isolation’of the country more tolerable.

The views thus expressed, it will be seen, are widely varied, and some of them extremely contentious. Nevertheless, the writers are practically agreed on one point—that the drift from the country to the city is an ominous sign.