WELLINGTON STOLE HIS HAT

New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 292, 26 January 1945, Page 8

WELLINGTON STOLE HIS HAT

But He. Liked Our Ice-Cream

THINK it was Barrie who said that the first time he saw Lord Rosebery he flung a clod at him. I did not fling a clod at Geoffrey Browne, but the day I met him Wellington stole his hat. I had invited him to walk along the street with me, and as we rounded a normally safe corner his hat went away at about 30 miles, an hour-over intersections and round corners; and then to my astonishment I saw him keeping pace with it. I had never seen anyone Tun so fast in a city street, but when I mentioned the matter to someone who knew him, I discovered that running was a "family failing." A brother had been an Olympic champion, and Geoffrey a university champion (I think of Europe as well as of the British Isles). The second time I met him he was hatless. "Not taking any risks to-day?" I remarked. "I have taken them, and lost."

HOWEVER, he knew the situation before he came to Wellington. They don’t know as much about us in England as we should like, but they know Wellington’s reputation for wind, and in foggy weather almost envy us. But it was not to see reeds (or houses) shaken by the wind that they came here. They came to talk to our farmers, and for almost no other purpose at all, "We certainly did not come to study your farming methods," Mr. Browne insisted. "How you farm interests us, but it is where your farmers stand in relation to other people that we really want to know." "Politically?" "No, socially rather. We came to ask your farmers to join us in a co-opera-tive cempaign — to relate their problems to ours and ours to theirs, and accept the view that our joint task is to feed the people." "Which you think involves planning?" "Planning and co-operation. If we don’t agree to that we shall see unregulated exporting in a few years, and the old madness of dumping." "Are. the farmers of England alarmed?" "Well, alarmed is a word that I would sooner avoid. Let us say disturbed." "What disturbs you is the thought that the British farmer, who has made heroic efforts to increase his output during the war, will have to face conditions after the war with which he may not be able to cope?" "Again I think your language a little strong. Our farmers are not easily crushed. If they were, they would not have been able to do what they have done since 1939. But it would be correct to say that the post-war prospects give them great anxiety, and that their troubles, if they come, will be shared by New Zealand." "So . your immediate purpose is what?" "To get farmers in New Zealand and Australia and Canada and South Africa to take a world view. Our farmers are beginning to do that, and we are anxious that yours should, too."... ...

"It is not a question of marketing only?" "Marketing is very important, Production, of course, comes first, but it is distribution that makes production effective. However, we are not thinking only of prices and surpluses. We are thinking of health and standards of living." "You really mean that?" "We do-even though you laugh when we say it. We see society as a unit, and don’t believe that one section can prosper long at the expense of other sections." "What does that mean?" "That the farmer can’t sell if others can’t buy, and that others can’t buy unless they are employed and prosperous," "Are you talking nationally or internationally?" "Both. We want the world’s food to reach the world’s people. If it doesn’t, it is useless talking about world prosperity or world peace. "The world’s a big place." "It is. So we have a big programme. But we are not asking for impossible things." "What precisely do you ask?"

"First that your farmers should see production in its world aspect, second that they should join us in London in October to discuss common problems, third, that they should press, with us, and with all other producing countries, for representation by primary producers on the Permanent Food and Agriculture Commission." ‘ "Well, that doesn’t sound over-ambi-tious." "No. Getting together is just commonsense. What would you think of a farmer who would not combine with his neighbours to divert a flood or beat out a grass-fire?" * ba * E spent so long discussing the things his party wanted to do in New Zealand that I had no time to ask Mr. Browne the things I wanted to know about Britain. Rather there was no time to get answers in detail. I-did fire off some of my questions. What did land cost there? Was it really true that three-sheep-to-the-acre farms could be bought for £10 to £15 an acre? Would the idle lands brought into cultivation during the war revert after the war'to grass again?’ Was there a farm-labour problem in Britain, and an accommodation problem? Were landgirls used extensively? Did artists and authors and other romantic people still buy farms or farm-houses? Had the scrap-the-plough campaign of America reached Great Britain? Did farmlabourers even become farm-owners? Did farmers as farmers ever get into Parliament? ‘ There was no time to discuss such questions, but Mr. Browne answered some of them as I asked them. Answers in Brief Land in Britain was cheaper than in New Zealand, or rather land in New Zealand seemed fabulously dear. Much of the land now in cultivation in Britain

would return to grass-partly because it is as difficult as it seemed to be in New Zealand to get farm labour, and retain it. Land-girls are used very" extensively — especially for work with stock, Yes, there were still many farmerartists and farmer-authors in Britain, some of them-Henry Williamson, for example, and A. G. Street--earning as much by writing about land as by cultivating it. He had heard of the American Faulkner and his anti-plough, but not of any British followers. Farm labourers did become farmers in Britain now and again, as message boys in the city became millionaires; but it was extremely rare. No farmer was in the House of Commons as a farmer. There was no such thing as a farm vote, or a farmers’ party, or an attempt to form one. Farmers worked with all parties, and realised that their prosperity was bound up with the prosperity of the whole community. I asked two more questions. Was there any significance in the fact that two out of the three pe ae delegates came from Essex? . ; "None whatever. It just happened that two very good men from Essex were available-one an expert in arable farming, and the other in horti--culture." Was there any in the fact that the leader of the party was only 36, the economist only 37, the horticulturist only 40? "Well, that perhaps does mean some-thing-though it might not be wise to say what. I would sooner say what I think of your ice-creams. I mean I would if I were a poet. They are an tl tion."