THE TENDENCY TO DRIFT TO THE TOWNS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 294, 8 June 1912, Page 8

THE TENDENCY TO DRIFT TO THE TOWNS.

To the Edntor. Sir,—To one who has spent nefly the whole of his life on the land ant. in the back country, following every calling incidental to pioneering it seems quite funny to hear of people deploring the above fact and wondering why that is so. The life on the land could undoubtedly be made more attractive and more pleasant than it is generally to-day if we would only open our eyes to obvious facts, but we seem to prefer a life of make-believe, a life of hypocrisy. If we would only admit those conditions and circumstances which are staring us in the face every day of our lives, and get to work to remedy the evils and have less talk and less attempts to explain away truths, we would get on a lot better. I have known some people who, when the fact of' the argument lay at their feet, preferred to look up in the skies. When I come to think of the toll of the strapping young men with whom I have worked in the back country of this Island and their ultimate end, and their finally expressed sentiments, it is all very clear to me

where the trouble Ims been all along. Years of hard work thrown away! Who was to biamc? Yes, ask the winds. Where arc the majority of those men now? In the larger centres of these inlands and! • Ausir.ilia, I."longing to labor unions, where the ears nf the various governments are over, ready to listen to their appeals but very seldom to the isolated farmer or baclcblocker. "We're going where the most plums are falling," was the last I heard of one party of I four I worked with, and there is no I doubt they did. We are all well aware that there are always some who prosper under some fortunate conditions, and some even progress under other conditions, such as cheap labor, prostituting their constitutions by scanty and inferior food and abnormally long hours, I think we have all met them. This sort of a person is a great detriment to the country life. It is a regrettable i fact that if fifty young practical far- ' mers were advertised for to-morrow it i would be a difficult matter to get them. !J In this very dairying vicinity if I wan- , | ted a hand only for a short period I won' 1 be unable to get one without a Igreai deal of trouble. What is the [) use of the closer settlement if this state of affairs is to continue! This district has been a very thickly settled one with families of from five to fourteen chil-

dren and yet I could count those who own land on the fingers of one hand. All gone to join the mighty throng. What has been done to remedy this state of things? Nothing but talk, and I suppose they will keep on talking.—l am, SMALL DAIRY FARMER.