FARM AND DAIRY.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 January 1921, Page 8

FARM AND DAIRY.

THE CASE FOR THE DAIRYMAN. When politicians, demagogues, and yellow journals want to stir up the people for ulterior purposes, milk makes a handy weapon to do it with, because everyone in the city must use milk, and very few know of any of the real problems of milk production. It is, therefore, easy to lead people to believe almost anything that is told them. Of course, it makes no difference to the demagogues that they are in danger of destroying or greatly injuring a necessary industry—an industry that is far more necessary te the consumer than it is to the farmer, and an industry that it takes years to build up. It matters not that every fair investigation has shown that farmers are not receiving too much for their milk, and for long periods have sold it for less than their costs of production. It makes no difference to the yellow journal that its misleading and lying statements are poisoning the minds of city people and creating a class feeling for which there is no reason. There seems to be a nation-wide attempt on the part of city politicians to make a grandstand play before the people by prosecuting farmers and their organisations. The principle of collective bargaining is gained by everyone without question to labour unions, but it is denied the farmer. He is prosecuted for co-operating, while had the farmers, especially the dairymen, not organised to protect themselves against the w dealers, thousands of them would have been driven out of business, and there would have been a i worse food shortage than there is at ! the present' time. In fact, the tremeni dous flow of population from country i to city in the last quarter of a century I shows that the city had the greater i advantages, and that making a living iin the country was no sinecure. If the farmer is a profiteer, or if he is guilty of wrong doing, then he should be punished. But it seems hard to believe that the farmers who are trying to co-operate to put agriculture on a lasting basis are all criminals.—E. R. Eastman, editor of the Dairymen’s League News.