WAR TIME PRODUCTION.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 June 1940, Page 4

WAR TIME PRODUCTION.

part of its contribution to the winning of the war, the Wairarapa is being called upon to increase considerably its output of a number of staple products, amongst them several kinds of meat, including baeoners, cheese, wheat, oats and barley for pig fattening. An excellent lead in the matter of setting up the organisation required to that end was given by Mr M . J. Polson, M.P., at the meeting of district farmers he addressed in Masterton on Friday evening, and it may be hoped that here, as elsewhere in the Dominion, there will be complete agreement with Mr Polson’s vigorous declaration that this is a time in which to set aside polities and get on with the job.

A host of detail problems of necessity will have to be dealt with in bringing about increased'production in various branches of farming industry, but the right thing was done on Friday evening in setting up a Wairarapa general committee, upon which will follow the establishment of district group committees to make contact with individual farmers. Problems which would be overwhelming if an attempt were made to deal with them in mass will become much less formidable as they are handled methodically and in detail by appropriate sections of the total organisation.

The Wairarapa is possessed of experienced and capable men who may be depended upon to give the skilled direction and advice that, may be needed in the expansion of particular branches of production. Some of those who may now be called upon in this capacity have a record of useful service of a similar kind rendered in the days of the Great War. In the extension of cropping that is projected, the question of providing adequate labour and machinery will assume importance and here no doubt the district and local committees may count upon the helpful co-operation of the Government, which has already taken action in subsidising the training of inexperienced men in farm work and in other ways.

Tn his address on Friday evening, Mr Polson said that the farmers of the Dominion were prepared to tackle this job without any thought of profit. No doubt it will happen in a good many cases that farmers will be called upon to change and expand their production without prospect of adding to their net incomes, or of deriving any permanent pecuniary benefit. The national and Imperial purposes to be served are, however, supremely important. Britain, now a fortress menaced by formidable attack, stands in need of increased supplies of many kinds which New Zealand can help to provide and efficient action to that end may count not less heavily in the ultimate balance of the war than battles won. It has fo be considered also that in the extent to which production within the Dominion makes it possible to dispense with imports—for example the production of wheat —the national resources will be to a valuable extent conserved and augmented. Obviously, too, an increase in our staple exports will not only be of immediate and vita] benefit to the Mother Country, but will count heavily in setting limits to the burden of debt which the war will leavein its wake. In this district and elsewhere, every farmer should feel bound to put his full weight into the action which is now being organised, feeling that in doing so he is directly seconding the gallant efforts for victory that are being made by the members of our fighting forces on land, at sea and in the air.