LAND VALUATION METHODS

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 128, 24 February 1938, Page 6

LAND VALUATION METHODS

Farmers’ Attitude CONSIDERATION OF MR. MONTGOMERIE’S REMITS (To the Editor.) Sir,—ln the official reply of headquarters of the New Zealand Farmers. Union, forwarded to the Makirikiri branch through the Wanganui provincial office, regret was expressed by the provincial office that a domestic matter within the union should have been aired through the Press, and, to quote from this official reply, “and in this matter head office stress the fact that this was violating official procedure.” There was a further suggestion that my activities were undemocratic and to the destriment of the democratic proceedings of the organisation. An emphatic answer to these two charges can be found in investigating the degree to which the treatment meted-out to these three questions has been undemocratic. Head office claim that they have devoted more time to these remits than any other remits thev have ever received. If, as Mr. O’Shea states in this head office reply, I have failed to follow up the original submissions with further and “practical” suggestions and “if” the Farmers’ Union is a democratic organisation, then the inclusion of these three remits on the agenda paper of the last Dominion conference would have provided me with an opportunity "from within the union” to have made some further submissions and it would have been “only democratic” to have permitted the sponsor of these remits to have pleaded for them in the “Farmers’ Parliament.” These remits were not on the agenda paper of Dominion conference, yet Mr. Lloyd I-lanimdnd, at our local provincial executive some four weeks ago, tried to have that body believe that thev “had been” on that agenda paper and that I “had had” the chance to air my views at the last Dominion conference. We can draw our own conclusions on the tactics employed to prejudice the final chances of these three vital questions in their home executive! " The Farmers’ Union proceedures are not democratic and members of the union so treated, as I have been, in advocating such vital practical and essentially logical aspects of the very necessary business side of farming, are therefore fully justified in using the Press to further, the advocacy of such front-rank (jbestibhs. Insofar as the unconstitutional procedure of sending the last Makirikiri resolution “direct to head office” is concerned, I caii only particularly emphasise that this convenient procedure denied to me the opportunity of a considerfed reply at the Wanganui provincial executive to the official reply of that executive read out by Mr. Armstrong at the Makirikiri meeting on February 10. Sb much for their desire that the domestic maters of the union be kept within the union I , It is necessary before proceeding with official head office reply, to refer to dn barlier official “but verbal” reply through Mr. Lloyd Hammond, to the Makirikiri branch November resolution. As in tiie case of this later biit-Written reply to a second resolu■,'tibn - from the Makirikiri branch. Jklr. Hammond stressed the time that jCidininidn executive had devoted to these remits, but said ,in so .many words that no practical results Would be forthcoming from further investigation, and that they must be dropped, without instancing one single flaw in such submissions dn Which sb much time had been claimed to have been spent. Head Office Replies.

On being asked by me as to why, if these remits could not be put t,o any immediate or practical results, could not a propaganda or' educational campaign be run in “Point Blapk,” directed toward focusing the individual farmer’s attention on these questions so that the sheer force of co-ordinated farming opinion must ultimately secure some national recognition, Mr, Hammoud completely evaded the burden of the question and attempted to answer It by the following, reply: “That beyond being obliged to conform to the policy of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union as laid down .from year to year at the Dominion conference, the union had no control over what wept into the columns ‘Point Blank.’ ” It is surely unique, to sb refer to the union S official journal. On being further asked by me _ to explain why it was that “Farming First” (the official journal of the N.Z.F.U., Auckland Province) had devoted some six pages to the republishing of an economic survey by me, a survey based on the three remits in question and that “Point Blank” had not given me any assistance whatsoever, Mr. Hammond made a further remarkable reply. He said: “ ‘Farming First’ is a theoretical journal.” ...Such a reply was an unwarranted and most ill-advised reflection on the entire Auckland province, and intended to further support his earlier references to the impractical (and theoretical) nature of my submissions. This, then, was the sum total of the head office reply to these questions up to the time of the further resolution passed unanimously . at, Makirikiri on February 10. Mr. Hammond had not produced one single logical argument in proof of his claim that they were of no practical use or point to any_ one salient weakness in these submissions. It had taken head office almost two years to reach this decision I To return now to this later full and official written reply, in a preamble to the reply to these remits they were termed “categorical replies forwarded from hea'd office to Mr. Montgomerie's remit.” I must point out that head office replied to two remits only, and not to the three. The remit on land valuation has not been replied to, for the simple reason that “it does not appear on their list.” So much for the categorical replies! I must point out with all possible emphasis that “their” remits 1 and 2 both refer to accountancy matters, and are either an accidental or deliberate false presentation of the original and only remit on farm accountancy. I did, as stated, move a resolution, and it is most curious to reflect, “seconded by the Dominion president.” One can only now view with some astonishment that a resolution carried unanimously at Dominion conference, now requires further practical submissions in support. Is it the same with the question of “compensated prices” also passed at that conference, for, in “The Dominion” of February 18 the Dominion treasurer, Mr. Horrobin, is reported to have stated at a meeting of the Hutt-Makara executive “that the compensated price was unsound in principle”? In regal'd to remit No. 2 (official reply), it says “with regard to depreciation of land through its use.” This of-

ficially admitted depreciation of land is an inescapable, tacit admission on the part of head office of the most obviously direct accountancy aspect involved. Mr. O'Shea states that the farmer can offset this depreciation by manuring. We annually topdress 6J per cent, of our occupie’d lands, and our present methods of farm accountancy are therefore only “GJ per cent, correct” in respect of soil depletion. Mr. O’Shea ascribes knowledge of soil depletion which is not very effectively borne out by the facts, in referring to this “200 year knowledge.” Boussingault (France) following on during the later years of Lawes (England), and Liebig (Germany), is the admitted father of modern agricultural chemistry; he died in 1887. Whereas “200 years ago” that soil depletion could not be measured owing to the then complete fog of mystery surrounding such matters; we now do possess the means of measuring that depletion. Short of dropping a ready-made and flawless accounting procedure.“suitable to- everybody,” into the union’s lap, they cannot be satisfied, and either can-. not or do. not intend exploring the question themselves. On the bare submissions produced at the last Dannevirke . conference, and thanks to Press publicity, the official journal of the New Zealand Society of Accountants, in their issue of June 20 last, gave unqualified editorial support to the claims bearing on farm accountancy and even touched at some length on land valuation and export index figures. Export Index Figure. In regard to remit No. 3 and its unqualified admission, “that Dominion executive has always recognised that the export index figure (hereinafter abbreviated to e.i.f.) did not represent the farmers’ prices,” is an assertion we can onlv commence to believe . when head office can produce some “Press publicity” as evidence that they did strenuously resist the vicious overstatement of the e.i.f. standing at 769, in November, 1932, and used by the “Farmers’ Exchange Committee” as convincing—even devastating proof of the farmers’ then unenviable position. Head office have invited the suggestion “that it is one thing to make_ Such assertions, what we now require is evideuce.” I n this instance, as iri the case of the other two • “alleged remits,” head office hate picked out.part oilly; of the original remits. Here again they are begging thb question find evading the. major issue, in confining their reply to this now “quite satisfactory to them solution of this particular remit. It can be piit down at 10 per. cent, only of the wider issue involved in the original remit. • What I must again point out as re-, maiiling Unanswered, is the gigantic issue involved in using E.I.F. to measure the purchasing power, of farm pfodtice in city goods and services. It can briefly be re-stated for their benefit, as follows The E.I.F. is based on 1914 f.o.b. values of fdrm produce ds also are the comparative wholesale and import indices based on. their 1914 prices. But the wholesale and import indices “capitalised iti their bases,” the vastly differing similar prices in’our virtually oPly external, market of the United Kingdom. • , , New Zealand is more dependent than is the economy of, any other country dn an external ffiarket. Tile New Zealand fatmer exports 80 per cent. of. his total annual,, prodiiction—a prodigious proportion of exports to total, production not even fembtcly challenged by any other ebiintry,' His industry.is the most Vulnerable; in the world to uneconomic internal costs, of production. As I have repeatedly,stressed, the. comparative price levels United Kingdom— New Zealand are vividly indicated by the comparative prices for steatn cpal per. ton. viz., U.K., 14/- and N.Z., 33/-. New Zealand maintains in effect arid in reality, two totally distinct standards of economic reward United Kingdom prices based bn 14/- coal for the farmer arid New Zealand internal prices based on 33/- coal for our entire non-farming population. I have already drawn attention to the . E.I.F. question as viewed by head office, as being 10 per cent, only, of the major question involved the remaining 90 per cent, centres around the economic lunacy of comparing E.I.F. which relate to prices based on 14/- coal with internal New Zealand prices based on 33/- coal. ,

Plead office will find that the “United Kingdom valued” New Zealand produce has been incapable of maintaining but of the annual revenue from our farming. industries, the money demands of our noti-farming'. population (compris : ing some 70 to 80 per cent, of our total population), whose share in production has been based on our insensate high internal price levels. This is the question of such tremendous significance which surrounds this distasteful remit on E.I.F. Rather than trust their ability to answer these questions, they must needs practise procrastination, evasion and now a dependence “on the undemocratic insistence in demanding an answer” and . “the regrettable and irregular use of the Press,” etc., at a time in the history of our farming when the exigencies of the present, coupled with the dangerous projected economic experiments of the future, would demand that we be told the truth and nothing but the truth. Finally, I would point out that it is not correct to state, as the official reply to the Makirikiri branch does state, “That these measures have been turned down by the considered judgment of both the Dominion executive and the Wanganui provincial executive.” A junta of the local executive, perhaps, but at a meeting of that executive, emphatically no. Such tactics demand , an official explanation. If head office had thought to bluff the' Makirikiri branch into submission they will now find the Opotui branch (Manawatu) solidly supporting Makirikiri. Evidence in itself that some members of the union do not require “further practical submissions in support ad infinitum” before they can visualise the possible value of such submissions and emphatically demand that justice be done- to them. —I am, R. O. MONTGOMERIE. Wanganui, February 23.