Farmers' Union Trading Association.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 285, 19 June 1917, Page 4

Farmers' Union Trading Association.

| To the Editor] Sir,—l have tead with some interest a report of the visit of Mr Ross, President of the Farmers' Union, to Waiuku and his address to the farmers there.

More particularly was I interested in his remarks re the Farmers' Union Trading Association and his advice to the farmers to support this trading concern in preference to the traders in their local towns. It is evident that the Farmers' Union which was originally organised to bring pressure to bear in the framing of legislation affecting the farmers' interests, has now resolved itself into an additional trading concern wherein the sentiment of Unionism is to be used as a lever to carry the farmers' trade to the large trading centres and away from the farmers' own local towns and districts.

" The farmers should support the Trading Association as they receive considerable benefits therefrom and the Unions are bound together." This remark of the President is evidence how the sentiment of Unionism is sought to be directed. No one will assert, least of all the writer, that the farmer is not entitled to do his trading and make such arrangements in connection therewith where and how he feels inclined, but if farmers give full effect to the advice of the Farmers' Onion President to support the Trading Association to the exclusion of trades in their own towns there are inevitable consequences which probably have not presented themselves to the farmers and on which the President did not touch in his Waiuku address.

The towns in farming districts depend on the farmers' trade for their existence, it was the farmers' trade that brought them into being, and these towns depend on the farmers' trade for their expansion and growth. They were created and no doubt exist by their right of service. They provide conveniences for the farmers which cannot be permanently maintained without the centralisation of the trades and business peopK For instance you will not find the doctor, or the chemist, located and following their professions amidst the farms, neither will you find the saddler, or blacksmith, the printer or the mechanic, the Bank or the Post Office or the various other trades and professions that go to make a town, scattered amidst the farming community. These collect together in suitable situations from where their services can be rendered most advantageously and form a town. These towns enhance the value of the farmers' land and the more they prosper the more is the yalue of the surrounding country increased ; they encourage a spirit of patriotism as every man takes a pride in the advancement and appearance of his district town and it is this pride and feeling for his own district that has caused him on a wider view to offer his services on behalf of his Country and Empire at the present time. But if the farmers strongly united, carry the bulk of their business to Trading Associations in the large and distant towns, the local trading concerns cannot exist on the profit from such odds and ends as the farmer finds it convenient to purchase from them, with the result that the small country town, does not grow into a big country town, but in the end must inevitably cease to exist, and with it goes the many conveniences which the farmer can ill-afford to lose, also the increased selling value of his farm. If the Farmers' Union seeks to control all the farmers' trade then instead of directing it to the principal towns let the Union set up branches of the different trades to supply the farmer's various requirements in the local centres ; but without such it is folly for the farmer to run the grave risk of loosing the conveniences and the certainty of future grain, which the advancement of his town ensures, for such small immediate advantages as the pooling of his orders to be supplied from a trading Association in a distant city will furnish. The fallacy of cheap trade being tho best trade, and that we are justiiion in passing by our own people to trade with outsiders has been obviously established by tho present developments between Germany and tho Empire. The Gorman trade, though choap at the time, has proved very costly in the end. To seek to establish a parallel between our pre war German trade and trade within our Dominian may appear rather far fetched, but thcro is sufliciont resemblance to warrant a comparison.

I trust this letter will not escape the notice of your numerous farmer friends, and if it should, even in a small measure cause them to give the trading business reasonable consideration my object in writing will be served and the farmers advantaged.—l am, etc., JOSEPH HENRY, Patuooahoe, Juno 16th, l'Jl7.