The Chronicle LEVIN. TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 1917. THE WAR THE FARM; THE FARMER.

Levin Daily Chronicle, 13 March 1917, Page 2

The Chronicle LEVIN. TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 1917. THE WAR THE FARM; THE FARMER.

Theie is need that a strong, thorc ughiy-representative backing be given L t-c tlie movement for appointing boards of triKteos to administer the farms of men now absent or likely soon to be absent on military service. This is a duty owed by the whole community to the absent men; and owed in more than an average degree by the men wli ;m age or other circumstances exempts from active military service. A g'lat many young farmers have gone from Horowhenua county, and more are to go. There is need in this county, more than in some localities, for thi. setting iup of a strong board. The preliminary steps to this have been taken by the chairman of the Wellington Provincial Branch of the New Zealand Farmers' Union, but in his capacity as Military Commissioner ■f:: r the WelPngton District. His en(l .v.voi'.-i have been helped forward con. sideraWy by the address given before the Horowhenua County Council last P", turd ay. by Mr W. H. Field, in his capacity as Parliamntary representative for this electorate. It remains now for the settlers of these parts to show by their presence at next Friday's meeting (and, still more, by a continuance of that .interest after the meeting has dissolved and the fervor evoked by the addresses has had time to abate) that they are prepared to do and continue to do all that they enn to help the men whose sacrifice for the Empire is of the more realistic kind. That the present endeavor is confined to the case of farmers is not to be wondered at; it originates with a body whose existence frankly stands to safeguard the best interests of the farming community. There is good reason for the safeguarding of the interests of every section of the community wherever safeguarding fe i practicable; and if those unions or other bodies, or individualities, that may fairly charge themselves with such duties will move betime, doubtless they will find themselves heard as sympathetically by the Government as the farmers have been. "Wherever it is practicable to protect the ~ business interests of any class of New Zoalander absent or to bo absent on active service, that should be provided l'or. The reason why the case of the farmer is foremost in the present endeavor is that the farmer is well organised, and that in the wideawake executive at the head of his union he has a clamant head to voice hiis needs. Time was when the New Zealand farmer regarded unionism as being the eighth plague of Egypt and every other country; but that time hn§ 'gone past. His union, Jormed sele'y for purposes of defence against legislation and defence against the demands of workers' unions, to-day is dciuc ustrating that the calling of the farmer is no exception to the rule that unorganised labor always fares worse than labor that has a united voice to raise. There are farmers ! r.-day—in Leviji as elsewhere-=who still regard unionism as anatheima, even when it stands for their own calling; hut one and all are likely to admit that the New Zealand Farmers' Union, hi its latest endeavor, deserves the good wishes of every patriot in the land.