RURAL INCOMES.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 16, 20 January 1926, Page 14

RURAL INCOMES.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —The amount of money lent on mortgage in the cities has multiplied several times —the annual average of the city mortgage per acre being about £2000, as against £490 in 1916. There is now, roughly, twice as much city land placed under mortgage as in 1916, the amount of money absorbed by town areas being stated as about equivalent to that advanced on rural security (18 per cent, to 52 per cent). What proportion of these mortgages are just paper and what represents money advanced would be hard to ascertain, but the mortgage tables show clearly that the average "inflation" of farming land, apart from the immense increase of production value, Is a mere bagatelle to the increase of city properties in value. In view of the essential necessity of having the land of the Dominion occupied and productive to its fullest capacity, will not some of our farmer M.P.'s move for a statement as to average farmers' net earnings, on different classes of land, in different districts, and in the various branches of farming? Something should be done. Certain knowledge of the extent of the evil may spur us on to provision of a remedy. We are heading straight for land aggregation, and depopulation of rural lands, which even the tremendous rise in value of farming produce has been unable to stave off.— I am, etc., A. E. ROBIXSOX.