WITHOUT DEFEAT

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 256, 26 July 1935, Page 8

WITHOUT DEFEAT

A Story with a Call to a Nation

By

OLIVER BLACK

Herein are being set 'forth the wanderings up and down the North Island of a young Englishman anxious to learn by observation and personal contacts something oj the life, the outlook, the aspirations and the genius of the NeuZealand people, as expressed in their daily round, their achievements as a community—a nation in the chrysalis—and their social and political development. 12 Labour and Farmers. Over a cup of tea in the hotel, Oliver got into conversation with a big man in glasses who said his name was Mann. Oliver found that he had been a dairy-farmer in the neighbourhood for many years and asked him how he was doing. , •‘.lust scratching a living now, said Mann, staring gloomily at nothing. “There was a time when farming paid, but that is years ago. now.” Oliver tried him also with the Levin man's percentages. ■■Well.” said Mr. Mann, “titty per cent, of the farmers arent actnallj broke.” , , . “Are 20 per cent, of the rest m a hopeless condition ?” "I think 20 per cent, is a high figure Fifteen per cent, are.” "And are hopeless farmers who never ought to have been on the land at all? “A good many of ’em,” Manu admitted. “What of the test?” “Oh, the rest have got heavy mortgages tied around their necks.” “Those are the ones who will chiefly benefit by the Government’s proposals for the reduction of their mortgage debts?” Mann spat contemptuously but accurately into the fireplace. “Government! It’s done nothing for anyone; no Government ever has done anything for me—that’s why Ive joined the Labour Party.” "Ob, so y.ou are a member of the Labour Party?’ Since when?” “Just a little while back.” “A recruit, eh?” remarked Oliver, and asked Mann what he thought the Labour Party would do for him. Mann said that they would guarantee prices at a fair level. “And where is the money to come from?” asked Oliver. Bank Credits Again. “The Labour Party will take over the banks’ credits.” “Now I’ve heard that before. Can you explain to me what it means?” Mann said that inasmuch as a bank could give credit to people in excess of their cash holdings, that credit took the form of wealth of which a Government could take control and use for such purposes as relief of unemployment and guaranteeing prices. “The whole system of private banking is all wrong,” said Mann. "It puts a man and a business into the hands of the bankers.” "We’d all of us be.in a pretty poor way if it wasn’t for the banks,” replied Oliver. “You borrow money from them and then curse them when they lend it to you, because you say it puts you in their hands. And you do not seem tj understand that this magic ‘credit’ you talk about isn’t a form of cash that can be handed out at all. It's inertly borrowing. Sooner or later someone has to put up the cash for every penny of credit, or, to be more accurate, for every penny obtained on credit. The whole basis of credit is simply that the Under has confidence in ihe borrower — feels sure of getting his money back.” "The banks’ credits are different from ordinary lending money.” “Why? Bank credit merely means the credit it allows to its customers. If the Government took over the banks, no one would be any better off unless the Government gave credit to people who were unsound and could not repay the lean. As soon as they started doing that, the whole edifice would topple over.’’ Mann admitted that what Oliver said sounded right. I think you’ve got it wrong somewhere, I hough,” he added. "I must ask our Labour candidate about it.” Oliver laughed. “If he can explain what he means by ‘taking the banks’ credits,’ and how they can be used for guaranteeing you 1/3 for butierfat indefinitely, he will be doing something that no one else has yet been able to do!” Oliver wondered how Mann would like some of the more fundamental ideas of the Labour Party, such as nationalisation of the means of production. He supposed that would Include Mann’s farm, and smiled at the thought of Mann being nationalised. “Is the Labour Party going to nationalise land?” asked Oliver presently. “1 don’t know just that for certain. They ought to. Take all the land, let it at economic rents to the farmer and compensate the mortgagees by giving them Government bonds.” “Very nice. More money to be found by the Government,” said Oliver. “Don’t you people realise that most of the people in this country are connected with farming, and that the people have to

find the money the Government spends, so that guaranteed prices and so forth would be guaranteed largely by the farmers? The farmers subsidising themselves is what it almost conies to! A fat lot of good that would be. No give me tills Government’s way of tackling the situation every time. Helps the mortgagor and mortgagee to make the best of a bail bargain, and if they won’t, then make ’em.” Mann shook his head, and remarked that the land ought to be freed from its burden of mortgagees by legislat 'Oil.

Why Pay Debts? “What about the poor mortgagee?” asked Oliver. “He shouldn’t bo allowed to have an interest in the land.”

“But, after all, a mortgagee is only a man from who you’ve borrowed money 1 If you lend me five bob you expect me to pay it back again, don’t you?” “Ah! ’’said Mann solemnly, “that’s different.”

“Is it? How?” “Because it’s not on mortgaged land.”

“Dear me,” said Oliver, “the debtor should bo released from the whole of b.is debt because lie gave the creditor land as security for it? Is that right?" “Why, of course,” replied Mann.

Oliver fell into silent wonder at the simple selfishness of such a creed. And this wasn’t a man fighting a hopeless struggle for existence like the widow he had met yesterday. This was a man, not burdened with an excessive mortgage, a man who ought apparently to have been in as good a position to-day as Wilson, if he had the same ability.

“Anyhow,” said Mann. “I don’t understand all this mortgage relief the Government’s arranging, and I don’t think anyone else does either.”

“So you’ve joined the Labour Party because no Government has ever done anything for you, eh?” asked Oliver. “Why should any Government do anything for you? You seem' to have got along pretty well without- their assistance.”

They left the hotel and walked up the road.

(To be continued.)