Editing Agrarianism (section)

===Oceania===

====Australia====
Historian F.K. Crowley finds that:

{{blockquote|Australian farmers and their spokesman have always considered that life on the land is inherently more virtuous, as well as more healthy, more important and more productive, than life in the towns and cities....The farmers complained that something was wrong with an electoral system which produced parliamentarians who spent money beautifying vampire-cities instead of developing the interior.<ref>F.K. Crowley, ''Modern Australia in Documents: 1901 – 1939'' (1973) pp. 77-I–78.</ref>}}

The [[National Party of Australia]] (formerly called the Country Party), from the 1920s to the 1970s, promulgated its version of agrarianism, which it called "countrymindedness". The goal was to enhance the status of the graziers (operators of big sheep stations) and small farmers and justified subsidies for them.<ref>Rae Wear, "Countrymindedness Revisited," (Australian Political Science Association, 1990) [http://apsa2000.anu.edu.au/confpapers/wear.rtf online edition ] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110723145257/http://apsa2000.anu.edu.au/confpapers/wear.rtf |date=23 July 2011 }}</ref>

====New Zealand====
The [[New Zealand Liberal Party]] aggressively promoted agrarianism in its heyday (1891–1912). The landed gentry and aristocracy ruled Britain at this time. New Zealand never had an aristocracy but its wealthy landowners largely controlled politics before 1891. The Liberal Party set out to change that by a policy it called "[[populism]]." [[Richard Seddon]] had proclaimed the goal as early as 1884: "It is the rich and the poor; it is the wealthy and the landowners against the middle and labouring classes. That, Sir, shows the real political position of New Zealand."<ref>{{cite book |author=Leslie Lipson|title=The Politics of Equality: New Zealand's Adventures in Democracy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oe8jAAAAMAAJ|year=1948|publisher=U. of Chicago Press}}</ref> The Liberal strategy was to create a large class of small landowning farmers who supported Liberal ideals. The [[Liberal Government of New Zealand|Liberal government]] also established the basis of the later welfare state such as [[old age pensions]] and developed a system for settling industrial disputes, which was accepted by both employers and trade unions. In 1893, it [[women's suffrage in New Zealand|extended voting rights to women]], making New Zealand the first country in the world to [[women's suffrage|do so]].

To obtain land for farmers, the Liberal government from 1891 to 1911 purchased {{convert|3,100,000|acres|ha}} of Maori land. The government also purchased {{convert|1,300,000|acres|ha}} from large estate holders for subdivision and closer settlement by small farmers. The Advances to Settlers Act (1894) provided low-interest mortgages, and the agriculture department disseminated information on the best farming methods. The Liberals proclaimed success in forging an egalitarian, anti-monopoly land policy. The policy built up support for the Liberal Party in rural North Island electorates. By 1903, the Liberals were so dominant that there was no longer an organized opposition in Parliament.<ref>James Belich, ''Paradise Reforged: A history of the New Zealanders'' (2001) pp. 39–46</ref><ref>Tom Brooking, "'Busting Up' the Greatest Estate of All: Liberal Maori Land Policy, 1891–1911," ''New Zealand Journal of History'' (1992) 26#1 pp. 78–98 [http://www.nzjh.auckland.ac.nz/document.php?wid=802&action=null online]</ref>