FARMERS' POLITICAL PROTECTION FEDERATION.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 355, 26 April 1911, Page 5

FARMERS' POLITICAL PROTECTION FEDERATION.

To The Editor. Sir, —I quite uphold the sentiments expressed by your correspondent "Fair Play" in your issue of the 22nd inst., but it would have given double value to the matter under discussion if he had signed his name—that was not fair play. The Farmers' Union, Jike the Labour Party, seems hopelessly divided, and the Federation, or any other federation the wide world over cannot stem the tide of advancing Socialism —it is flowing in by a natural process, it is the awakening of the masses from an ignoble past. Scores of men to-day are successful farmers because of the Socialistic tendencies of the Government. The farmer, to reap the benefit of his toil, wants to bring his produce nearer to the consumer, not make his labourers bear the burden of keeping that worthless barnacle —the middle-man. If the farmers would inaugurate a Farmers' Co-operative Federation to include the successful Farmers' Auctioneering Company, the result would be a widespread harvest for producer and consumer, but with his products as at present, as with all commerce, the middle-man scores at the joint expense of producer and consumer. Why do the Socialists cry far State ownership? To reduce the cost of the necessaries of life, and to oust the middle-man. Farmers again are themselves to blame for any shortage of farm labour. In many—too many instances the food and accommodation offered to labour is a disgrace to a white man. If a man is worth his wages, be is worth being housad and fed, and the wonder is that labour is available. While capital is crying out frantically against "any encroachments of labour," yet by the very conditions it imposes upon its brotherman- -the labourer- —it is forcing to the front the very Socialism it eternally damns! There will be a third Party in the House next year: Labour - then land legislation will become interesting reading. Land is the vital principle of coming Labour legislation I am, etc., E. NICOL.