MR J. B. BRINSDON ‘Too many middle men’

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33987, 30 October 1975, Page 12

MR J. B. BRINSDON ‘Too many middle men’

About 1965, when farming at Dunback, Otago, John Brinsdon set out to demolish arguments put up by proponents of the Social Credit tinancial system and ended up an enthusiastic member of the party. Now aged 40, the father of two daughters and a farmer of 1084 acres of land at “Gowan Brae,” in the Wairau Valley, Marlborough, he will contest the Rakaia seat for Social Credit. Mr Brinsdon has not been a farmer all his life. He has tried several occupations — his trade, he says, is “upholsterer” — and he has had a stint as a motel owner at Havelock, from which town he contested the Tasman seat against the Prime Minister at the last election.

He is a practical man and he spoke about prac-

tical things when interviewed. He confesses to riding one or two hobby horses, probably the foremost of which is the “total inadequacy of the present financial system — too many middle men getting their whack for doing nothing.”

He cites the case of a farmer requiring a loan going to a stock and station agency for it. “The agency, in turn, borrows the money from the bank, using the farm as security, at one rate of interest, then lends it to the farmer at a higher rate of interest. Why can’t the farmer go straight to the bank?” he asks. He feels, too, that New Zealand should not attempt to compete with industrial countries in the manufacture of such commodities as cars and machinery. All New Zealand's agricultural products should be sent from here cut, packaged and

ready for the oven in the case of meat, and processed into wool tops for wool. These items should be traded for industrial items, he says. He condemns previous governments for not rais

ing wheat prices to a level where New Zealand farmers would grow all the country’s requirements There should be no need to import any agricultural products, he says. He advocates, too, the necessity to put young farmers on the land — they would raise productivity. He has, too, forthright views on providing aid to poorer countries.

“I’m ' opposed to filling the poor nations’ ricebowls. They will just sit there and keep 'holding out the bowl. That’s all they are taught to do. Teach them to trade something that they have got for something we have got. “I would be happy to send them agricultural experts. But if they wanted gram, I would see it was poisoned so they would have to grow it before they could eat it,” Mr Brinsdon says.