FARMERS AND MORTGAGES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 116, 18 May 1932, Page 6

FARMERS AND MORTGAGES.

Considering the Government has gone so far in providing protection for farmers who may find a difficulty in meeting interest or payments, there seems no need to form a protection league, as suggested in a remit passed by the Auckland provincial branch of the New Zealand Farmers' Union last evening. Some of the remarks made by speakers indicated a frame of mind dangerously near defiance of law, and. were more appropi-iate to the soap-box than a gathering of primary producers. If farmers can take the law into their own hands, why not others? Such a doctrine is subversive of all law and order.

There was opeii advocacy of a boycott of those buying the stock of a neighbour who had been imjustly sold out. But who is to decide the question of injustice ? Is the lender to have no rights? What some speakers might consider justice for the farmer might involve injustice to others. If the boycott is a right and proper weapon for the farming community, why not also for others? "If,", said one speaker, "you refuse to have anything to do with a man dealing with firms who treat you badly, you will soon obtain results." This is nothing else than economic war by one section of the community on another section, and the method of the boycott was rightly condemned by the Government when applied by a section of the Civil Service. The suggestion of one speaker, that farmers should refuse to send produce abroad until their demands were satisfied, was both wild and foolish. What would they do with their produce if they did not export it? It would be a strike against themselves. Everyone knows that farmers are suffering hea-vily from the depression, and quite possibly there have been eases of foreclosure inflicting grave hardships, but talk of boycotts and taking the law into their own hands will not help matters.