CLEARING LAND BY MACHINERY

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22676, 3 April 1939, Page 14

CLEARING LAND BY MACHINERY

Correspondents who do not comply with our rules set out In the last column of our Leader Page will excuse us from noticing their letters.

t» bditob or m rsaia. Sir, — We farmers who are using machinery extensively in our farming operations know where the shoe pinches. The remarks made by the Hon. P. C. Webb are made for the consumption of those persons who can be gulled by such nonsense, and not the farmers. On March 28, the day of the big trials on the West Coast, I and neighbouring farmers were gathered at Hororata at a clearing sale, at which two farmers were realising upon their stock and chattels, and what a sale. These men were walking off their farms—men well skilled and hardworking and not the kind of men P. C. Webb or Mr Savage visualises as likely to take up these improved-by-machinery farms, close to railways, etc., but farmers with a life-time’s experience at their command. On the Downs road there are now four vacant farms, and a fifth pending. The sale is early next month.

You also advertised about a dozen other clearing sales in your Wednesday’s paper. We seemingly do not require any more machinery for clearing our land: it is being done with a vengeance. Are we other farmers to stand idly by and see our fellow farmers forced or pushed off in this fashion? I think not. The other week a Christchurch manufacturing firm raised its employees’ wages, anticipating the rise. Do the city people think they can keep passing on these costs until such time as there is no equity left in our farming land at all? Almost the whole of the annual rental value of our land has now disappeared, except for the better class land, through these costs. Are the economics of farming such that they require an overhaul? Does the question of farm finance require a bit of? a brush up? Should some control be exercised over the financiallyinterested parties? Until such time as our export trade or our population requires more production there is not -the slightest justification for the expenditure of our London balances on the importation of this machinery when so much of our second and thirdclass lands that require no clearing is Idle and is capable of growing all our country requires. One thing the farmers must do is to let the people know the whole truth and stick together, or I am afraid they are in for a bad time. Farmers seem to have lost all hope and confidence in themselves and their occupation. Why? “—Yours, etc.. T. E. PEARSON. Hororata, March 30, 1939.