NEED FOR ASSISTANCE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 54, 1 February 1938, Page 8

NEED FOR ASSISTANCE.

AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRY. QUESTION OF LAND VALUES. There was a. world-wide opinion that agriculture needed some form of assistance in order to level it up with other walks of life so far as wages paid and hours worked were concerned, said Mr E. Bruce Levy, director of the grasslands division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, in addressing the Palmerston North Rotary Club yesterday. “There ia no doubt,” he added, “that agriculture has in the past, and still lias to-day, to stand the racket in regard to social reforms in non-agricul-tural spheres of life. Industry demands short hours, good working conditions and high wages, and these are enjoyed also by the professions and distributors. Industry, distributors and professions, for the most part, set their own price; agriculture has to take whatever price is offered.” The returns from agriculture were insufficient to attract the best brains and brawn of the country, and this had been particularly noticeable overseas. The breeding and care of live stock surely demanded as much skill and brains as the care of a machine, and yet the machine paid better wages and afforded shorter hours than the live stock ; hence it was the greater attraction for skilled labour. Too much in the past had been made of “the love for the land,” “the freedom of the individual,” “the lure of the outside life,” “the contact with nature and mother earth.” Those attributes were all excellent sentimentally, but when they did not bring in the money they fell very flat and became unattractive to the liad who wanted to get on in the world. DOMINION FAVOURED. “Whether agriculture will survive without sufficient remuneration is a question for the future,” continued Mr Levy. “Personally I would, sooner see agriculture a thriving industry on its own merits rather than have to resort entirely to sentiment and the old adage ‘love of the land,’ strong as that sentiment may be in many hearts. New Zealand is undoubtedly favoured above a.ll other countries I visited overseas from an agricultural producer’s point of view, and it would appear to me that cur national aim should be an internal rearrangement of the farmers' monetary obligations, which are mainly connected with land values, rather than in fixing or guaranteeing a price that will be ever increasing wherever land values are allowed to rise. Any artificial arrangement, such as tariffs, exchange manipulation, and guaranteed price are nauseous to our overseas competitors and to_ farming Britain itself, and in view of our climatic advantages and one lias only to travel in Great Britain, United States of America, Canada and on the Continent to appreciate this factor—it does look like a blow below the belt to juggle , with exchange and to guarantee a fixed price for. our farm products, until, at least, this practice becomes world-wide.” ' If one could express the v. spirit a.broad in trade and commerce, in the street, and even in agriculture itself, it was surely the desire, if practicable, to be free of restraint and to be given an open way for individual expression and initiative, concluded the speaker. Earl Baldwin, in April last, had expressed it thus: “I see a danger ahead—that our people may become mechanised not only in body but in mind. I dread the mass mind, I dread the loss of that independent individualistic character which has made this nation what it is.”