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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 61

Crushes Out the Small Producer

Crushes Out the Small Producer.

I believe that the small producers are the back-bone of every country; and if you take out the back-bone, what have you left? If you want to raise the social status of the masses of the people, you must give every encouragement to small producers by making it easy for them to acquire land, and then giving them facilities for the transport of the produce of their small farms and factories. At present they art charged from four to ten times the rate charged to large producers, whereas they ought only to be charged such extra rate as would pay for the extra cost of handling.

We all know what the small producers did for France in her day of trouble, and we have in our own Colony a good example of how a district may suffer by their absence. How often have soup-kitchens had to be established in Canterbury? and why have they been obliged to establish them? Simply because the great bulk of the artisan and labouring class there are dependent on a few large producers. If they had their own small holdings they would be able to maintain themselves when out of work; but they have no houses of their own for these reasons—Land near the large centres is too dear for them to purchase, and if they could, the means of transit are too dear to enable them to live at any distance from their work, I have mentioned Canterbury, because there is in that province a less proportion of small to large landowners than in any other district, and because there has been there a more frequent occurrence of distress among the poorer classes. In Auckland we have the largest proportion of small producers, and we suffer the least from these periodical depressions.

If transit charges were made much cheaper than they now are, a very great boon would be conferred, not only on the working classes, but on manufacturers and farmers, because it would enable