N.Z. FARMERS' UNION.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 76, 21 July 1914, Page 6

N.Z. FARMERS' UNION.

THE PRESIDENT'S OPTIMISM.

[Per Press Association.] •■•'.... Wellington, July 21

An optimistic note was struck by Mr J. G. Wilson, president of the New Zealand. Farmers' Union, in his address to the conference which opened to-day.. ''No words pf mine," he said, "could be so eloquent of the state of the Dominion as the fact in plain figures that our Dominion of one million persons had exported twenty four millions, worth of produce." He added that more eloquent still was the fact that out of this eighty-five .per cent, was the produce of the land ; in other words £20,400,000 worth of produce, over and above that required for New Zealand's own use, was extracted from the soil and exported to various countries all over the world to pay the Dominion's debts and leave a surplus over our exports. The increases in the value of the products of this country were: Mutton increased fay £361,252, lamb by £723,602, beef by £115,928, butter by £83,394, cheese by £330,001, and hides and tallow by about £150.000. Curiously enough, prosperous time's did not seem to make for contentment. One would naturally suppose that in times oi plenty all would be so intent upon "raking in the dollars" that they would not have time for discontent, "but," added Mr Wilson, "we arc not allowed this privilege. Grievances are manufactured and profitable occupation follows in the spreading of them, so that we must just accept the position much as we have to do in the case of. various parasites in our ordinary avocations. Unfortunately, no "dip" has been yet found to effectually deal with the human kind."