BACK TO FIRST PRINCIPLES

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 247, 9 June 1932, Page 3

BACK TO FIRST PRINCIPLES

G. J.

TUCK.

(To the Editor) Sir, — It was with great interest I read the various ideas put forward by correspondents in your paper. All seem to think that the age-old idea of "get baek to the land, young man," is the panacea for all our economical and social distress. Therein I disagree. Mr. Martin's idea of putting men on the land is to my way of thinking, the best but for the financial problems involved. I have advocated for years the placing of people on suitable areas with no rent in any shape except road and drainage rates, and these should he kept as low as possible. When our men came back from the war and wanted to get on to the farms, they were promised before they went away, I did all I could in my small way to have the men put on to suitable areas — free, with certain restrictions as to transfers, much after the Yillage Settlement Act of the old Liberal Party. However, that is past and gone, and now • we are trying t osolve a world-wide problem by tinkering with a system that has proved itself a failure. Instead of trying to prop up an old, worm-eaten system let us get down to first principles and causes. What is the reason of this trouble? That is what any thinking person asks when trying to solve a problem, and the strongest thing of all is that we blame the transit of gold or some other financial exchange juggling, and all the time we are endeavouring to bolster up a system that we condemn. Let us look back 20 or 30 years and take stock of the methods then in use to provide the people with the necessaries of life, and observe the methods in use to-day. On the farms the machines have displaced hundreds, especially the electrically-driven plants. Every employer of human labour is doing his utmost to replace human by mechanical labour. Hence we now have thousands of men in New Zealand alone, thrown on the scrap heap, and for what purpose? Is it to cheapen the necessaries of life or to put bigger dividends into the owner's pockets? Let us put the machinery that is now working for the benefit of a few, to work for the benefit of the many, and our endeavour to solve present-day problems by placing people on the land — will automatically right itself. Let us co-operate. Let us be human. Let us nse the machines and onr hrains for the benefit of the people. — I am, etc.

Rotorua, June 7, 1932.