The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 1919. DANGEROUS INDIFFERENCE.

Taihape Daily Times, 27 June 1919, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 1919. DANGEROUS INDIFFERENCE.

W'ith which its incorporated ' “Tho Taihape Post and \Vainla.rino News-”

The Winter Show of the Rangitikei Agricultural and Pastoral .-Xssociation, just past, should have its” lessons for all who are deeply interested. in the progress of this large district, which is yet only in the first stages of its making, and in the welfare of .ihe whole Dominion from a general production and riches‘ earning point of view. It has been said that a man cannot; live by bread alone,” and it might be added that this countl'ycannot live on meat and wool alone. It is this fact which growers of meat and wool apparently fail to appreciate in its real perspective and importance. Bread and meat furnish the bulk of man's food, but there are other essentials in the way of food which man cannot live long without; when man turns from meat at the dinner table it is an indication that other essential elements in keeping up the physical and mental equilibrium are needed, and while he revolts at meat, he will Voraciously eat something else. This is mentioned so that there may be no doubt about the necessity of producing something more than bread and meat if we are going to be .a selfcontained Empire. Next in importance we find milk and the products of milk, butter and cheese. Another. highly essential to human life is eggfood; eggs furnish those constituents‘ of the human body which other "foods are short of. We must not get into the idea that all ‘this country has to do is to go on producing bread, fiieeft, and wool-, because we owe a duty to the Empire to produce to the highest .state of perfection and volume many commodities which are not obtainable

in ‘the heart of the Empire at the‘ time of year they should be produced plentifully in New Zealand. This Dominion looks to Britain for many of its requirements_. and it is our duty and profit to supply Britain with her needs at a season she cannot produce them in suflicient quantities he:-selflt Farmers holding -large areas of land, in the country can go on, with the States’ aid. furnishing meat and wool; men with lesser sized holdings. with the State’s aid, may go on growing the essential wheat and other cereals; men with still smaller farms will, with State aid, furnish milk,‘ butter and cheese, and other milk products, and the men with the smallest area of land should not be neglected Because their operations look small be.' side tho.se of the meat and whea‘t growers. Nature has decreed that the products of the very small farm—— fruit, and p0lll’Cl‘)"--{l1'C just as essential to human health as wheat and meat, although not required in such large quantities; but we do say from all available evidence, that our poultry and egg farms and our fruit farms have not been given their place in the State Sun that it is in the in-I terest of life and ‘health they should occupy. What is the general experience respecting the encouragement of the smallest farmer who is aSiICC6SSiII'Y‘fiS the biggest sheepman? The biggest land—occupier does not deign to notice‘ the poultry and fruit men! in his riches and purse pride he 1711115 110! realise, or admit that they are essential to human existence as he is. The wheat-grower is more tolerant to the smaller holders, because he has a conscious or unconscious feeling that milk, eggs and fruit are also necessities of life. While this indifference to farming smallest holdings obtains in this country; while fruit and‘ poultry-farming are rather diseour-, aged, what do we find much largerl Countries doing? ‘Many of our observant soldiers just returned from France can tell us that it is the few acre farmer that is the backbone of the French Empire; that it is the 3fruit,poult.ry and vegetable men that furnish a great Droportion of the rmoncy for State Loans; they find the money for Empire expansion, for war and for most other pressing purposes, Let us ask what the smallest farmers in New Zealand can contribute to Gevornment loans, war loans, or otherwise, for then, another question presents itself: has the Govcrnment of this country been conducive to the growth and increase of a multiplicity of small taxation burden bearers, or has it concentrated on the upkeep of a small, select class that can contribute money for the State, :but which will not conrtibute

sufficient. without the fnresence on the Statute Book of a law of‘ compulsion? Then, there are two: very -vital reasons Why exhibitions of what the small farm produces. should be encouraged by the Wool, meat and wheat men as their exhibitiohs of produce should expect from the smaller men. - The most vital reason is that milk, poultry, eggs, fruit and vegetables are just as essential to human existence as meat and wheat. The other is that by encouraging the holder of huge areas of land and disCoUl‘3ging the small holder, the ‘State is carrying all ‘its “eggs" in one basket. Should developments in South America, Siberia, China, and in

countries adjacent to any of them, disturbs the value and safety of that one basket, disaster overtakes the State, In 1871, when German)’ de‘ manded an indemnity that the big men of France thought to mean BXtinction, they had not realised. the value of their small farllléi'S- It Was the small farming community that saved the French Empire. and pullei it out from German doiiiination in only a few short years, and, as ‘Surely, must all countries depend upon a great army of small producers in the future, rather than upon a few large landholders, who‘, like the heavy thunderstorm are soon spent, While the constant drizzle of ordinary condensation continues till the parched earth becomes saturated and refructified. In concluison we suggest that neither large or small farmer should place too much reliance on present conditions of the world’s- demands and the worlds production. In only a very few short years» there will certainly have grown up a condition that We might look upon to-‘daylas revolutionary in production and marketing. We may profitabl_v ponder over the question of What is to be the effect upon New Zealand and upon’ the British Empire of the threatened _coming development in other countries of primary production, if the whole body of the population is kept in dependonce upon a few large landholders for their means of life and existence. It will be seen that to attempt , to bui_l'd'up"a great nation-upon a large holding basis, is to ~ endeavour to achieve the impossible. With growing competition in‘ countries that are capable of making New Zealand look small indeed, decadency rather than progress is ahead; but we shall, perhaps, before it is too late, come to it clear understanding on this subject, and there will be the sc-.qilen‘tiaT rush to multiply and still‘ multiply the number of small holders. It ill becomes the large farmerhhto turn up his nose at the Winter Show. essentially the show of the small producer, for it is only by the increase of such farmers and their production that the necks of bigger men can be saved from strangulation by _taxation‘.tha't"‘is alreadythreatening. V‘ hope, ‘to see a gro'\'yi'ng’ ihnterest” ;'tal<en_ in the WinterShow; that it \'vill“cease to be treated as sometliing of no co_nsequell\c.e,. _:'c_r when‘"the day of national tribulation. comes, as it did come in France, like what transpired in French salvation must be in readiness to save New Zealand. The small farmer is more essential in building up a great nation than any 100,000 acre man can be, then let all support their Winter Show as its importance merits.