THE FARMERS...

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 431, 26 September 1947, Page 8

THE FARMERS...

A Simple Story Without a Simple Ending

| Written for "The Listener" by |

M.J.

S.

HERE was once a country that was divided up into a number of farms of various sizes. There was not always a direct relation between the size and fertility of a farm and the size of the family that it had to support, 'so that it came about that there were considerable differences in the standards of living in this one community. However, except for attempts from time to time by over-crowded or domineering farmers to take over by force whole, or part of, a neighbouring property

there was no effort made to rectify this disparity which was accepted as the natural order. Now different farms by their climate, location, or skill of the farmer, were suited to growing different crops; and the opinion had once been expressed

that if all the farms were fully productive together their yield would be sufficient to feed and clothe every farmer's family. But as this statement had, for various reasons, never been put to the | test, it remained an opinion only. | ‘The first reason was that each farmer (held it as an inviolable right that he should run his farm in his own way regardless of any outside considerations, and that his own interests should be | paramount. This he had been told by his father and his grandfather before him, and had come to regard it as a self-evident proposition. For instance, ‘if a river ran through several properties each farmer tended to regard his part | of the river as his personal possession, ‘and it was unusual for the farmers whose | lands were watered by one river to come together willingly, if at all, to discuss joint projects for flood and erosion control, water utilisation, or boating facilities. As for determining what crops should be grown, each farmer made his own plans with a mixture of guess, expediency,. and hope. 2 * * * HE second reason was the varying prosperity of the different farms. When a farmer hed a surplus of a crop

that grew well on his property he could exchange this for something that he could not grow so well, or at all, himself; a sheep farmer would exchange his spare wool and mutton with his neighbouring dairy-farmer for his spare dairy produce and a little beef as a change from the everlasting mutton, and so on. So all would have been well except for the varying quantities of surplus available for exchange. A farmer with a large family and rather poor land would not be likely to have much surplus, and if, for example, he skimped himself an his own food crop to exchange a little for wool which he could: not grow his family was likely to be partly hungry and partly cold. On the other hand there might be a farmer with highly productive land who would have a greater surplus available than was needed in exchange for the other items he required. Then a farmer's prosperity would not necessarily remain static, but, depend"ing upon seasonal conditions, upon the farming methods used (and on various other causes which we need not discuss here), it would happen that a farm which had previously been flourishing might become much less productive. ae di %* O it had happened at this time we are describing. One farmer, called, say, Mr. A., who had a large and very fers tile estate, and what he liked to call "know-how," in his farming methods, had become (for a number of reasons) exceedingly wealthy. He maintained a large workshop where he, or rather one of his sons, made ploughs and other farm equipment; a large stud producéd draught-horses to pull the ploughs; and on the varying types of land that made up his property he grew a number of

crops: so that except for some small items he was practically self-sufficient. If he had to obtain, for example, the leather for the harnesses of his ploughs from another farmer, he could obtain enough leather for several ploughs in exchange for one plough. The position was therefore that the other farmers in general needed more of Mr. A’s products than he required of theirs. ae re Fe "THOUGH Mr. A.’s farm was the ‘" wealthiest in the country, it was not the largest. There was, for instance, Mr. R. who had an even larger estate, but much less highly developed. For many years it had been inefficiently run, till new methods which could be described as vigorous and experimental had fairly recently been adopted in an attempt to -/ make pp this leeway. _ Like anything new, these methods were regarded as highly controversial by most of the other farmers, while to say that the more conservative farmers like Mr. A. considered them unorthodox would be putting it mildly. In fact, Mr. A. regarded Mr. R. with deep suspicion and even fear, and seemed to have the idea that Mr. R. was only waiting for his opportunity to persuade Mr. A. to adopt these new methods on his own farm, even though at this time Mr. R. was fully occupied (owing to a recent setback which need not be discussed here) with his own under-developed property. Though their properties almost adjoined at one point, the children were forbidden to play; and so grew up distrusting one another, though away from their families they would no doubt have played together as happily as any other children. The farmers had, indeed, gone to the trouble of erecting high barbed fences on the boundary through which the children shouted insults. (Mention of fences implies another story, by no means unconnected with this, but one which would only complicate this simple account.) Though Mr. R. was greatly in need of some of Mr. A.’s ploughs and other equipment, for which he would have been able to give in exchange timber, for instance, from his extensive plantations, it was in the nature of things that any exchange which took place was on a very small scale. This rather extreme case has been described to illustrate the sort of relationship that existed between the various farmers; although they were all neighbours in one small country their attitude could not be described as "neighbourly.". And while they were all concerned with the same problems of how best to clothe and feed their families, it was their differences that seemed predominant in their dealings with each other, though they were alike in imputing to each other their own worst intentions. And they had no hesitation in behaving towards one another in a way that thay would have been ashamed to see repeated within their own families. * * a ETURNING to an examination of Mr. A.’s farming methods, we could probably say that in many ways the activities of his different sons, each of whom was allowed to run his own part of the farm in his own way, demonstrated a lack of co-ordination similar to that we noticed between the farmers themselves. Each son produced his own crop without regard for any overall plan, and was indeed inclined to resent as interference any advice or suggestions on Mr. A.’s part, and each son disposed of his crop as best he could. Though if all went a

well production might at times be high, obviously this system was liable to be haphazard, and there tended to be periods of unregulated over-production paid for by poor seasons of under-pro-duction. * * * S we mentioned before, it had come "" about (for a number of complex reasons which need not be discussed here) that Mr. A. had become increasingly prosperous while some of the other farmers had fallen on lean times. Most of them were greatly in need of his ploughs and other equipment, of his horses and food products, in most of which he had some surplus at this time; but the trouble was that there was little that he required from the other farmers, or that they had to spare, except for a few odd specialised items which could in no wise redress the balance. This then was the problem which was worrying thém all at this time. What was to be done. * * * ‘THE farmers who needed the goods, of course, found the position most irksome. They disliked extremely the idea of being dependent on Mr. A.’s charity, and were determined to do their utmost to meet the situation with their own resources. (It is perhaps a mistake to use the word "charity," for we have. seen that there was little disinterested charitableness in the farmers’ dealing with each other.) They called a number of meetings, but the meetings, like most in this country, were marked not. so much by an unwillingness to come together, as by their apparent inability to come to a decision; or, if they should agree on a course of action, to put it into effect. Nor was there ultimately any compulsion for a farmer to abide by a decision. But it seemed that however much théy exerted themselves, with the present unproductive state of their farms there was just not enough to go round without Mr. A.’s reservoir of wealth. Of course the same situation was repeated to some extent among these farmers, for even among themselves they did not all have the same powers of exchange. And as for Mr. A., what was he to do? Could he, if he wished, remain a virtually self-sufficient island of wealth in a sea of varying degrees of poverty? There was in this country no taxation of the rich, nor any social security to help the less fortunate in their time of need, and giving was still, though in a rather limited sense of the word, voluntary. Mr. A. had always believed, not in each according to his needs, but in each man for himself; and he liked to think that his wealth was his own to do*what he liked with. On the other hand he was not entirely without a sense of obligation, and it was true he had family ties with some of the other farmers, and he had always rather prided himself on his popularity among them as a good fellow. But they knew that more realistic considerations than these would be needed with the practical Mr. A. and his hard-headed sons. * * co |T was generally thought that Mr. A. was a sufficiently experienced farmer to know that a farm was not an isolated. community; and that if the other farmers through poverty were unable to tend their land properly, then the gorse and other weeds which would spring up would threaten equally his own land. And he realised that he would find it (continued on next page)

THE FARMERS (continued from previous page) almost impossible not to become involved in the quarrels that were apt to occur among the inadequately clothed and fed; and that if he could not dispose of his surplus products, there was always the chance that the possible overproduction would be followed, as had happened before, by poor seasons. Most perhaps he feared that the other farmers might be tempted to adopt Mr. R’s forceful methods to cope with their extremely difficult position. In his own interests, then, Mr. A. was more or less ¢onvinced that he could not stand aloof. What then should he do? Should he lend them some of his produce they so badly needed? We ‘might perhaps say that he could lend them money to pay him back for his produce, but mention of money would again convert a simple story into a very complex one. So we say simply that Mr. A. could lend them the goods, not of course that he would expect to get the goods back as such, but he would have the vague hope that he might some day be repaid in produce by the other farmers. However the difficulty was that, as he wanted little of their produce now, it was unlikely that in the future he would need enough to repay him for the present loan, as well as for future current exchange, if not also for: future loans, So that it seemed that he would continue to become merely more and more wealthy, thus aggravating the difficulty of the present position. With the help of Mr. A.’s equipment to restore their farms and his food to nourish their families, the other farmers should, of course, be able to increase their own production, and so might need fewer and fewer of Mr. A.’s goods in the future, except in the course of ‘normal exchange; but that still would not solve the problem of their present debt. So Mr. A. suspected that such a loan would be in fact a gift, though he would be unlikely to call it so explicitly. However as he realised the power of his position, one idea that occurred to him was to make conditional loans to those farmers who were prepared to run their farms according to methods ‘he approved and to shun those of Mr. R.; but many of the farmers would rather remain in poverty than submit to this kind of dictation. A more hopeful suggestion was that Mr. A. should help, possibly without severe conditions, a group of farmers in one particularly hard-pressed district to restore together their farms to good working order, arranging together how best this could be done, so that the district as a whole might become flourishing to the benefit of them all, But first they would have to be persuaded to agree to make their plans together. * % * N the meantime the problem of poverty and plenty continued. Many of the farmers were beginning to realise that however munificent Mr. A. might be, or whatever other solution was found, it would be useless if it merely re-established them in their old way of living, each man for himself. Some of them remembered how it had been said that together they could feed and clothe (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) everyone in the country, an absurdly simple aim which seemed the most difficult of all to achieve, for not only was the combined desire necessary, but even more remote the combined will. As a member of one farmer’s family expressed it (reducing a very complex situation to extremely simple terms as * this story does) it was like a game of marbles, where one player was getting all the marbles, and unless something was done to give some back to the other players the game could not go on.