THE SHUT-EYED DAIRY FARMER.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 February 1920, Page 2

THE SHUT-EYED DAIRY FARMER.

To the' Editor. Sir,—Quite recently your representative In an interview With Miss Loirtio Mack, a much travelled lady, elicited tlio remark "that we, as a nation, had our eyes shut." There's not the slightest doubt but that the remark is justly applicable, and the dairy farmers have theirs shut the tightest. Being shut-eyed they grope blindly along the well beaten road prepared by a class who practically live on their otTorts. Being shut-eyed they cannot sae for themselves, and therefore are unable to notice the doings -of the class represented by the merchants, the shipping, and other barnacles that they have allowed to hang on to their efforts, and which hare so gripped the shuteyed man on the land that the latter Is too frightened to try and do without them. They are so shut-eyed that, being for some decades the led burden-carrier of a fast growing number of parasites, the prospect of bettering their condition by bucking off a useless load seems to them that they would bo in the position of a rudderless craft on the ocean. Being shut-eyed their education in matters pertaining to their benefit and that of their children Is not studied as It should be, and the carefully prepared education system arranged for blind men by the class which takes all sorts of care to keep them shut-eyed Is the only education they know of, and of a consequence any expansion which spells betterment Is carefully side-tracked. The producer on the land is the real bulwark of any country, but the shut-eyed dairy farmer of New Zealand Imagines that that position is occupied by those who take advantage of his blindness. They are so shut-eyed that they cannot see that the miner, the wharfle, and the Industrialist (who have succeeded in taking the scum from their eyes) are willing to work with them hand in hand for the betterment of the whole, whereby the gigantic alterations taking placo In other parts of the world in the social system mean that the benefit of the work done by them will come to them but which can never be theirs, going a|:i they ure—shut eyed! Being shut-eyed, they are the willing tools of the exploiter In all degreen, and, being shut-eyed, they feel something Is not right, and, no matter how they grumble or kick at the Increasing load put on them, which they feel, but, being shut-eyed, cannot see, they are the willing absorbers of the poison prepared by which their fellow producer of the mine and the factory and the labor of the wharf arid the bush are made to appear their enemies. Being shut-.eyed they are, therefore, helpless and cannot see that for their own protection they should comblno with those who are open-eyed, and can at least try to divert the blows, of the whip handled by the nm-producer master. Being helpless on account of being shut-eyed for a considerable period through listening to the blandishments of the exploiter In his many avenues, it is f'nm they obtained the help of the real sympathiser whose method of taking the scum noiii tnelr eyes cannot fall. The view made apparent then would astonish them. It Is often said that the looker-on sees the best of the game, and the remark of Miss Mack Is so pertinent to the state of the dairy farmer that I f«l Impelled, to draw his attcnlon to (t. us affecting himself.—l aan, etc , .lOE. B. SIMPSON. Durham Road, February 7.