SMALL FARMS BILL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 November 1940, Page 4

SMALL FARMS BILL

FARMERS’ UNION PROTEST LETTER TO PRIME MINISTER MEASURE CAUSING GRAVE UNREST. THREAT TO NATIONAL UNITY. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. The objections which the New Zealand Farmers’ Union has to the Small Farms Amendment Bill are outlined in a letter which the Dominion secretary of the union, Air A. I’. O’Shea, has sent to the Prime Minister, Air Fraser. Air O’Shea urges upon the Prime Minister the inadvisability of proceeding on the present lines. The letter states that “if the Government perseveres with this Bill the result can be only grave unrest among the farmers of New Zealand, and there will be a complete lack of that unity which the present war situation renders so vitally necessary,” and continues, inter alia: “Examination of the text of the Bill shows that it contains no plan for soldier settlement, nor does it make any contribution whatever io the solution of the problem of rehabilitation. “I am instructed to inform you that my organisation is most perturbed over what it does contain, and that there is general dissatisfaction right throughout the farming community with the provisions of the Bill, which have aroused suspicion and distrust. As the law stands at presenrt, there is ample provision for compulsorily acquiring land for settlement when compulsion is necessary, and this machinery has operated since 1928, when the Public Works Act was placed on the Statute Book.