FARM FINANCE

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21708, 15 February 1936, Page 22

FARM FINANCE

TO TH« IDITO* Of THt ijitßSS.,

Sir,—l again refer to your article in your issue of January 29. The Government of the day was largely responsible for the boom which encouraged "the get rich quick," in the speculation in land. The moratorium may have been necessary. Mortgage legislation, together with the high rate of exchange, enabled the stock agencies to carry on. But the huge load of debt, which even these "soaring prices" for produce cannot touch, can only be met by another "boom." The mortgages, before 1914, arranged upon a careful valuation, have been ruthlessly held up. Mortgagees are reduced to poverty! Owing to legislation, these is an entire lack of confld-

ence in dealings with land.", The bonafide farmers have had.time and opportunity to recover from the depression. If the country is to be restored to a healthy condition, "the day of reckoning" cannot be lohger post-poned.-—Yours, etc., RETIRED PARMER. February 13, 1936.

TO TBS XDFTOB 07 THB 78883. Sir,—l was very much amused on reading “Retired Farmer’s" letter, for the farmers have had a bad time this last five years, and many of them have lost all they had after a life of hard work and drudgery. Many more are in the debt of stock agents. Rutv reading between the lines of "Retired Farmer’s” letter, I gather than he would like to see all these weak farmers cleaned up and pushed out of their holdings. I am not surprised, at the people of Ireland taking the law in their own hands when the landlords started to pull down the houses over their tenants’ heads. It has not been the farmers’ fault that they have been placed in such financial circumstances. They grew the produce, but it was impossible to make the prices, I would like to know how long "Retired Fanner” has been retired, If he had experienced the prices that have ruled for farm produce these last five years he w6uld whistle a different tune. Now, as we have a live wire of Minister for Finance, I am sending “Retired Farmer’s” letter to him, and I qm also going to make a suggestion to him of a way to loosen a lot of this uninvested money lying Idle in the banks. My suggestion is to put a tax of 1 per cent, on all uninvested money. This would, in my opinion, induce Farmer” to loosen up and get to work again- and not to lose his time looking for some silly old “cocky” to let him have his farm for one half the price it is worth; I first want to tell “Retired Farmer” that the time is past when a man who has been a trier can be pushed off his farm.— Yours, etc., FARMER February 13, 1936,