The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE MONDAY, JUNE 16, 1919. AN APPALLING FOOD SHORTAGE.

Taihape Daily Times, 16 June 1919, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

MONDAY, JUNE 16, 1919. AN APPALLING FOOD SHORTAGE.

Wdiih which incorporated “The Taihape Post and Waimarino . News.”

what wrong turn has the British Empire taken? Why is there an exodus from rural life to the life of towns and cities‘? For a score or more years past this drift of people from oif the, land and into the cities has been forced upon the attention of statesmen, economists, and thinkers. Go to whatever part of the Empire one Will, whether it be England, Ireland, Scotland, Canada, Australia, or, most notably, New Zealand, there may be found the perpetual movement of the people from healthy rural life to the roofkeries of towns and cities. As this movement is more noticeable in the British Empire than in any other, it may be assumed that somevchange in British policy is the cause, and Where the fatal drift is strongest the errant policy is practised Ito most dangerous extremes. In some parts of the Empire -efforts have been ' made during the war to turn the stream of people from cities back to the land, . but the returning people find that the Hland has, in some cases, doubled in I [ value since they left it. A little human i ‘ ferment is set up in protest, and to; ascertain what has happened to make? ‘ the land our soldiers have been fighting ‘ for worth so much more to the men i who have been squatting securely on it I while war raged, and many are the !stupid, dishonest stories told in this | connection. The Irish people were told ‘that land Values were going up owing [ to the increase -of population, while, as ‘la matter of fact, population has been ldecreasing for the past. twenty years, not much, but something. It is as well la broad View and a deep perspective ‘should be taken of this exodus from the land, because the British Empire _!has, for a. very long period, not grown 'enough food for its people. British people grow about 35 per cent of their . requirements in wheat, and have to delpend upon foreign countries, to counltries quite apart from the Empire, for 65 per cent, despite the fact that British India has the third largest wheat I area in the world. People in this Doiminion carelessly. flippantly, pass over I such. m-utters, but the time is probably i in the near future when want will com- ‘ pel them to think; will make them pay .more attention to the selection, enactment, and administration of their counfitryfs land policy. What will happen if the wheat-eating people in wheat ex--‘porting countries increase is in far greater ratio than the ,5 wheat production? It is apI parent that our Empire may be faced with some such situation. An in- ! crease of wheat-eating people is ,‘ already "rapidly taking place in Russia, lSiberia, Japan, and in other parts of -the world; the old black bread made from rye and wheat that is not of exportable value, will not now satisfy people in wheat-growing countries. It is a significant fact that the wheat acreage is increasing‘, and still there is a decreasing volume available for countries in which enough is not grown to feed their people. Japan has become a wlleat—consuming. nation, depending upon extraneous sources for making up its increasing shortage of the staff of life. With Japan as a competitor for Siberian, Caucasian, and Trans-Caspi:an wheat, and the rapid falling-off in Anlerica’s exportablc surplus-, the wheat problem becomes most serious. At the annual meeting of shareholders in the Bank of New Zcaland, the Chairman stressed the imperative need for more production in New Zealand, He urged upon farmers the fact that taxa. tion was going to prove a blight. on their operations of rather 3, rutlfless character, unless the'Government took immediate steps to increase pl'oduc_t.ion

The greater the volume of production, the less the severity of coming taxation will be felt. Everywhere is the cry for more production being heard, in economics, finance, trade, and menacing,ly from the "masses of the people, yet , not n finger is lifiied to put waste { Crown, and native lands into producing something. The British Empire is in ~ the front rank of wheat consumers. and Yet it only eultivated——ineluding India ——39,000,000 acres of the WOrld’s wheatfieid, aggregating some 250,000,000 acres, when war broke out, producing only 31‘ at a trifle more than one-third of the wheat required to feed its ‘people. The‘ indifference of - G'roVm'n4ment'9 to them facts?-tie truly appainng. Should R 1 ssia and Japan ever coalesce against Britain and America, they could mp?rl- - starve them into submission, and

- there are not wanting copious warnings‘ that Japan ‘is profiting by Germany’s shortcomings in her preparations for 3. world-war. Foet.her~brained; "arid 3, feather.their-nest breed of -politicians yell “more production” at the tops of their voices like J 3. flock of magpies lor parrots, while they ’continue [their exploitation of the peoEple. They take up the cry from sueh men as the Chairman of the Bank of New Zealand, but they do not share his honesty and earnestness. They headlessly go on accumulating _their plunder where it is not immune from want and revolution, instead of

laying up their treasures amongst. the people of the land they live in. No‘ land can progress and flourish on a few rich and the rest of the people abjeetly ‘ poor. We shrink from the thought of one season’s failure of‘ the vworld’s wheat crop; we see that the United States has had to take the country’s wheat harvest at ten shillings a bushel, because there is no market at hand from which Wheat to feed the States" people can be purchased. New Zealand wheat-growers want ten shillings for their wheat, regardless of the fact that it can be purchased in sufiieient quan- I tities for this Dominion ’s requirements in Australia at, roughly, six shillings! a bushel. Whatever course is follow-I ed, whether it be one of increased proIduction or drift, we cannot, however ;nlueh We strive, shake ourselves free, {of the basic principle of existence,‘ which is that food must be produced‘ and made available at a price that the masses are, by their Wages, enabled to pay. Highest. prices for commodities, and lowest outlay in wages is an incompatibility, and none -but inmates‘

l of a lunatic asylum would expect prosperity for themselves or their counltry from anyt-hing-’so mythical. -"We fnote that some. writers still persist in E referring to labour as a commodity, and 3 they deal with it as such in their calculations and reasonings. Wesay these are the men that are acclaiming for revolution; it is such apostles of" greed who, by their oppression of the people, have brought ‘info -the wo.rld- what-We nmv term Bolshevism, but which is merely a. rising of the people against 1111‘Il-iltural selfishness, withits utter disregard to all human life but its own. It is a raising of their voice oflthe people which, when telnpe.red with anarchic tendencies of arclriniinal class, becomes revolution. The lesson selfishness teaches has a widespread significance in this Dominion; if production was made to wipe out the severe want new experienced for necessaries of life, a contented and happy condition would soon replace the atmosphere of indus-

trial upheaval ant} revolution; these leonditions are never found where the people are prosperous, contented, and happy, but they do flourish where :1 few explzoiters think the country is prosperous because they are getting much of that which should be shared in by the people. Of inealculably greater

‘importance is the food aspect of the British Empire, and;_gf the"world. The Great War, of which the closing scene iis not yet, was won by starvation. Truly has it been ‘saiclthat an army fights upon its stomach, for Without food it has no stomach for fighting. Russia and Japan ‘could lay down a wheat-field almost, if..not quite, equal to that of the worl,ti at "the prESCn'f ‘time; Victory in War is primarily a matter of food, not of men, and while the British Empire only grows onetbird of its requirements in wheat, and ;the United States is only just about able to feed their own people, it would only require ten years’ preparation for Japan, Asiatic Russia, and China to starve our Empire and all Anglo-Saxon peoples into defeat, rendering their peoples vassals of the little Brown Men of the Rising Sun. There are nasty facts to face and successfully deal with, if even the great. British Empire is to maintain its existence in the years to come. We do not like to look upon the World situation, it is nevertheless a reality the nations have 1 to face. The re is only one way to al lasting peace, and tliat lie; t'v;,l- 41311 the cultivation of every inch of British 1 soil that is capable of growing any-, thing. Germany delayed her starvation I

of Britain till too late in ”tbe war, lotherwise a German victory was humanly certain. IS the Empire to continue its invitation of other enemies to starve it into subjection, or will it adopt -a universal policy of “production and sfill more production?”