The Party Spirit 



increase of production has been shown to be 

 of vital importance. A Royal Commission, 

 however, appointed by our present system 

 of Government and influenced by party 

 politics will achieve little. Even if it makes 

 a valuable report, the strength of party 

 feeling will prevent its being acted upon. 



Not only could our land produce more, 

 but the most serious fact to remember is that 

 each year it is actually producing less than 

 the year before. Of late years our party 

 politicians have talked about land reform ; 

 they have talked vaguely about the necessity 

 of increasing production ; they have said 

 that the land ought to employ more people 

 than it does at present, but they have done 

 nothing. If the land is to produce more, if 

 agriculture is to flourish, the right conditions 

 must be created, but the party politician — 

 thinking ever of votes — has not attempted to 

 create these conditions. He has made no 

 attempt, in the first place, to understand what 

 the land could do if properly handled, and in 

 the second, to teach the nation at large what 

 the proper development of our land would 

 mean to the Nation and to the Empire. 



145 L 



