FARMING AND BANKING

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22072, 21 April 1937, Page 3

FARMING AND BANKING

TO THB EDITOR OF TRX FRBCX. Sir,—While those engaged in supplying producers with their essential requirements are able to have their wages fixed in accordance with statute laws, manufacturers fix their prices and financiers their rates of interest, the producers are at the mercy of all the rest. How many of the vast army that is dependent on the producers on the land stop to think how essential it is, for their own sake that the farming community should be provided with the cash necessary to place them on an equal footing with every other section of the community. How can a farmer purchase his requirements when he receives such a low price for all that he produces, when instability of returns is a chronic feature of his business. When banks had to keep gold on hand to redeem their notes there might have been some excuse for private control of currency and credit, but of later years there has been a State guarantee behind all currency, and the time has arrived for the State to take over all private banks and banking. The numbers engaged in every branch of industry and commerce should be tabulated, and their incomes ascertained, so that everyone will know what proportion is appropriated, by each section, of the nation’s total production. It Is only by such means that scientific planning can be applied successfully. What farmers lose by selling products overseas must be spread over the whole community by the adjust-1 ment of finances by the State bank. Hitherto the control of credit, the issue •of currency,, backed by the assets of the people, have been used to enrich financiers. The latter can see the writing on the wall and have started a campaign to try to retain their grip, which they find is beginning to slip since the Labour Party took control of the Reserve Bank. Surely the farming community will put on its thinking cap and weigh well the utterances of those at present so voluble—those who believe in giving their constituents as much of the truth as is palatable.— Yours, etc., HIRAM HUNTER.