FARMERS ON TOUR

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 677, 31 May 1929, Page 18

FARMERS ON TOUR

BIG CANTERBURY PARTY WHEAT TARIFF DEFENDED (From Our Own Correspondent) HAMILTON, Today. With the object of becoming acquainted with agricultural conditions outside their own provinces, a party of 300 Canterbury and Westland farmers is making a tour of the Dominion by a special excursion train. Its members were given a reception yesterday at the Waikato Winter Show. In welcoming the visitors, Mr. J. R. Fow, Mayor of Hamilton, said that the Waikato could not show the Southerners better land than their own, but it could point proudly to wonderful productivity under the influence of the mild climate and plentiful rainfall. Also, the advantages that came of close settlement could be seen everywhere. The importance of fertilisers was stressed by Mr. T. H. Henderson, president of the Waikato Sub-Provincial Branch of the Farmers’ Union. “They are the life-blood of this part of the country,” he said, “and it is necessary that they should be sold and railed at the lowest possible rate." “You do not have to toil for results here, as we do in Canterbury,” said Mr. J. Carr, of Methven. “I noticed only one three-horse ploughing team between Wellington and Hamilton, but in the South one sees teams and tractors used in ploughing everywhere.”

Continuing, he said that farmers’ excursions could do a great deal toward bringing the farmers of the country to an understanding of differing points of view. The tariff protection, for example, which was given to Canterbury wheatgrowers, was neces •» ry because of the need of ploughing and renewing pastoral grasses every three or four years. Further, it was necessary to do this work without loss, and take off a crop of wheat in the process. This could only be done under the shelter of a protective tariff. Mr. A. Fisher, of Culverden, said that wheat meant to Canterbury what butter meant to the Waikato. He asked his listeners to inspect the province for themselves before making attempts to nullify Canterbury’s efforts to stabilise the position of the wheatgrowers.