When Farmers Come to Town

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 60, 2 June 1927, Page 9

When Farmers Come to Town

No More Buggy-Rides PROSPERITY AND MOTORS 'J'WENTY years ago, even ten, the phrase “thanks for the buggy-ride,’ was full of meaning, but now it would be void of significance if a tin-pan songwriter had not revived it. There were days when he would ride with the farmer and had to cultivate such an acknowledgment, but to-day the farmer rides in a car, and knows the steering wheel better than the reins. Evidence of the car’s overwhelming popularity in the country districts was furnished at the Waikato Winter Show. Front the outlying hamlets the farmers came to the show in their cars, and their practical interest in milking machine exhibits was little more keen than the attention they gave to radio sets. Hamilton is a great motor-car centre, and in show week its automobile population reaches the peak. Garages are packed, and streets lined with everything from “flivvers” to limousines. Ward Street, where the show buildings are located, is a stream of cars all day, and not more than a fraction of them are. the property of urban residents. LIVING IN COMFORT From this is to be drawn the obvious inference that times have changed, but there is something more. It is that the rural economic situation is not so bad as has been suggested. Farmers are not as prosperous as they were a year or so ago—that is admitted—hut neither are they in peril of general bankruptcy. They are still able to maintain good standards of living, and can enjoy the show just as much as can the townsman.

To an old farmer, resident in the Waikato for a score of years, was put the direct question: “Are the farmers badly off?” He replied “No,” with qualificacations.

He said there would always be a percentage of shiftless farmers, and they, like the shiftless city business man, were hard hit by slumped prices. Moreover there were a lot of unfortunates who bought at a peak. “We who have been on the land for years are all right,” said the old farmer, “but others are feeling it.” 4 Even so, there are relatively few cases of real hardship, or of lowered standards of comfort. One man interviewed came from Wanganui to the Waikato in 1920, when prices were soaring. On his selection near Cambridge he is still prospering, and can afford to be as well-tailored as the successful lawyer or doctor. UP AGAINST PROTECTION “What we are seriously up against,” he said, speaking as a keen Farmers' Union member, “is this protection business and the Arbitration Court. Our land is good enough to let us stand reduced prices for our produce, as long as they don’t keep on pushing up selling prices against us.” There it is. The farmers may be discontented, dissatisfied. irritated, even needy, but few have been compelled to sacrifice more than the superficial luxuries with which the townsman, too, has had to dispense. At the great Waikato' winter show, any day this week, hundreds of farmers can be seen mingling with their friends of the town, and not showing signs that they are over-burdened with want or care.