FARMERS AND FINANCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 148, 24 June 1932, Page 3

FARMERS AND FINANCE.

CHANGE IN OUTLOOK

DOUBTS ABOUT OTTAWA

MR. MACFARLANE'S SUGGESTIONS

In his presidential address to the Royal Agricultural Conference on Wednesday Mr. L. R. C. Macfarlane said the practical farmer was needed, but was often useless without some science and business ability. The watchword of the men on the land should be quality, then quantity, not quantity at any price.

Farmers had changed their outlook on financial matters since the war. The borrowing period had been followed by years of desperate production to get the utmost out of the land. Now the farmers realised how they had been misled. Their resources had become depleted or exhausted, leading no reserve for the future, while all the time overseas prices had continued to fall, taxation Mas rising and unemployment increasing. Conservatism was one of the great factors working against the social interests of mankind at the present time. Some would not recognise that the world had changed, that there was no longer any danger of a world shortage of anything. Material science had bounded ahead in recent years, but social science was still in the dark ages, and political economy and organisation were hopelessly out of date.

Mr. Macfarlane said the country was being buoyed up by hope. It was suggested that the Ottawa Conference would solve every problem of preference and currency, but Great Britain's huge investments in South America had to be taken into consideration. He predicted that South American interests would cast a big shadow over the proceedings at Ottawa. The breaking-down of tariff barriers and the control of currency and exchange by State-controlled boards, affiliated for trade purposes, with a central control board, were two matters in which New Zealand could help toward universal rehabilitation. Civilisation had a great heritage if finance could only bo made the servant and not the master of trade.