SOCIOLOGIST LOOKS US OVER

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 383, 25 October 1946, Page 18

SOCIOLOGIST LOOKS US OVER

| Oregon Professor’s Interest in Farming ) INCE arriving in New Zea- : yy land a few weeks ago I ) have several times been _asked to compare this country with | America. But it just can’t be done," /declared Professor Robert H. 'Dann, Professor of Sociology in Oregon | State College, who is spending his Sab_batical Year investigating New Zealand _conditions. "The U.S. is too big and too | varied between one region and another | to make any comparisons that are worth | anything. But I can very easily and profitably compare things in New Zealand with things in my own home State. For Oregon and New Zealand have just about the same population, the same climate, the same industries, and the same folk. "Take farming, now. Just as with you, it’s our biggest industry in Oregonalong with lumbering. A big range, like your -Alps, stops the wet winds from the Pacific from reaching the eastern part so that our coast is wet and forested like your Westland and our inland area is dry and suited to wheat like your Canterbury. Only our rain stops in summer. We might get 60 days on end without a shower." The Listener representative, looking out through a spattered window-pane, sighed for Oregon. | "Well," said the Professor, "It’s good | to be sure of getting sl] your hay in. But ‘T@es on your cows. No berms to build, hand, or, at most, by cups that empty into a bucket under the cow. But then of cows, each in its stall. So our dairying is inefficient compared. with yours. Only, say, why don’t you drink the milk you grow? You've got the biggest and cheapest milk production in the world and, Fe Oregon set-up, again, is a good ' deal to your Ui

Board of Higher Education. This has several constituent colleges, all of which teach general subjects up to first-year standards and thereafter specialise. With the same population we must have around double the number of students that you have. On the other hand, only about one-third of those who start finish their courses." Returning to the subject of dairying end other production costs, Professor Dann made some comparisons between New Zealand and U.S. prices. "Butter went up to 90 cents a pound, say 5/6," he said, "when price controls were lifted, though the new controls have got it back a little since. And milk rose to 70 cents for 32 ounces-that's roughly 2/- a pint. And haircuts quite normally cost a doller. You've controlled inflation doesn’t have. I sold my automobile before leaving for 750 dollars: And then in Auckland we rode in exactly they same model taxi bought for £900. the mileages you make them run! We junk our automobiles after 80,000 miles or so, and many people think that one that is two years old is getting too dangerous to ride in." Talk of economic problems led to questions about political outlooks. "Sure, that’s the first question every- one in New Zealand puts me," replied Professor Dann. "Only most folks say ‘and is America quite hopelessly capitalistic?? Well, plenty of Americans equate ‘the American way of life’ with economic individualism. But the idea that the majority of Americans are economically. ambitious is as false as the statement that New Zealanders flop heiplessly on the State. Our organised labour is of course non-political. Unions haven't (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) much theory: it’s primarily more money they want, though they did get behind the Democrats before last election, pushing Wallace. But there’s a long way from that to a Socialist party." "Then did Wallace’s resignation from the Cabinet have perhaps as much internal as external significance?" parties for lack of cooks and maids. I suspect it is this advance that has made the old bunch in the deep South go really violent. I’m not suggesting that discrimination is ending. For example,