THE BURDEN BEARER

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 89, 14 April 1923, Page 11

THE BURDEN BEARER

PLAINT OF THE FARMER

TOILERS WITHOUT WAGES

A DISSERTATION ON ECONOMICS.

-1 [This article has been writen by a farmer over the signature of "Oblonus," and probably represents the views of many of the farmers. In giving it publicity, "The Post" does not identify itself with the opinions expressed in the article.] It seems almost a criminal thing to disturb the happy dreams that waft us by pleasant ways to paradise—even if it be a fool's paradise where everything in the garden is lovely. Why not continue to drift easily, declare an unbounded optimism, and rest content in the assumption that ''it will all come right in the endl"? But this is the policy of cowardice and fatalism. Let us take our courage in both hands, fairly face the position. I assert boldly at the start that not one industry in New Zealand stands upon a sound economic basis. All, except farming, are bolstered up by some artificial, government-made regulation, and will surely collapse at the first crisis; while farming, crushed by the load 3 imposed uon it, is not a payable proposition. : In the first place, our currency is debased and no remedy in view. That the currency of many other countries is still more debased is no advantage to us. When one is a pauper among paupers, the chance of obtaining relief is nil; a pauper in the midst of riches has at least the hope of retrieving his position. THE MORATORIA. Then there are morotoria current for (1) secured debts, (2) call deposits, (3) certain individual companies. The first of these has been in force for over eight years, and for many years without any justification. Those in authority have evidently been obsessed by the fallacy that they can control the rate of interest with advantage to commerce—an attitude strongly reminiscent of the old ' woman sweeping back the Atlantic with a broom. The second moratorium was never really justified. If business men accept call liabilities it is for them to meet them. By this risky method of finance they had obtained huge sums of money at an interest far below the market rate. By Government interference they were relieved of their risk and left with their gains, which amounts to a fraud. Those traders who had conducted) their affairs on safe lines were deprived of the benefit of their foresight and prudence. One effect of such Government interference ia to discourage prudence and to encourage _ recklessness. The' third moratorium, in favour of certain individual companies, I have no hesitation in stigmatising as a public scandal, and the excuse of "unreasonable creditors" is absurd and savours of an impudent attempt to fix guilt on the creditor instead of upon the defaulting debtor. The result of all these moratoria is that there is no such.thing as sanctity of contract in New Zealand. •. It seems to be accepted that if a sufficient number make the devil of a mess of their affairs on a sufficiently large scale they- must be bolstered up imd relieved of the just punishment of their imprudence at the cost of tho industrious and prudent part of tho community. The ultimate effect must inevitably be the reverse of what was intended; money will not be available except at' extortionate interest for these pampered enterprises. •■ s SPECIAL PRIVILEGES. Under this head fall all' laws and regulations conferring special benefits on some -at the expense of the rest of the community.. The rivileged few are placed on a favoured footing, and not on an

economic basis. The returned Boldier with farms, houses, loans, and exemptions granted to him at 1 the public expense on conditions utterly unbusinesslike, is the main charge on the longsuffering worker. When this mass of uneconomic finance —the total of which is immense for so small a country—is forced to find its economic level the loss will,be appalling. . Nor will. even the soldiers benefit. Many have already gone out, having sacrificed their £100 or £200 or £500—their little all—and years of hard toil in a hopeless struggle against inexorable economic laws. And many more will have to succumb. Th© unfit placed on tens of thousands of acres by a paternal Government (when private vendors would not have trusted them with a single acre) must still go under. Another privilege that amounts to a public scandal is the exemption from liability for rent. This becomes the engine of great dishonesty—and dishonesty can never pay in the long run. Practically all industries in New Zealand, except agriculture, are pampered under the warm shelter of the Customs tariff. The result is that agriculture to that extent has to carry all other industries on its back—a gross injustice. For example, agricultural implements cost, the users here more than double their price in the country of origin. ' TRADE UNIONS. 'Hirer artificial, protected industries <trn further puprwt.erii by * -vic-inim » v ».

combine or union among the labourers standing out for a scale of wages far above the real productive value. One of those out-of-date old fossils named Euclid—a mere slave who lived 2000 years ago—laid it down as aa axiom that "the whole is greater than its part," and no one has yet succeeded in disproving it. Consequently, the part cannot be greater than the whole. But the up-to-date trade unionist says: "It does not concern me that the whole produce of industry is £1, I'm going to take 25s as my wages share or part of it, and) be damned to you!" And because of protective tariffs he seems to succeed—at the expense of the unprotected workers (mainly farmers). Tho labourers having thus far succeeded by combination and Government assistance in defying economic laws, the employees are.not slow to follow by forming close combinations among themselves to hold out for an absurdly high profit on those absurdly high wagea. Who pays? Those without trade combines, without protection— in the main the farmer: ' A very great number of individuals are directly supported in more or less complete idleness by the working part of the community per medium of Government pensions. There are Maori War pensions, Boer War pensions, Great War .pensions, widows' pensions, miners' pensions, old age pensions, and special pensions. Undoubtedly many of these are justified, but, just as certainly, a. vast multitude are not, and the strictest inquiry should be instituted into tho cage of each individual drone, to the great relief of the workers. In addition to this are charities—hospitals, asylums, charitable aid—refuges of all sorts, both 'public and private. 'Many of these ure necessary; some are not..; But nothing is more certaiii than that the patient worker must support all these non-workers. PUBLIC LOANS. Every year this gallant but misguided little country has to stagger under more millions of Public Debt. The Minister of Finance from time to time and at all times 'shouts aloud his unquenchable optimism. Has he not raised another loan ? He is to be trusted. Has not someone lent him five Hob till the morning? To boast of having paid off a loan—but the idea is too absurd! Undoubtedly publio borrowing under some circumstances is justifiable and beneficial. But it ought to.be self-evident that the money must be.spent, in useful and profitable directions. Expenditure. must be on an economic basis. When in prudent days long past we borrowed a modest little million to complete, the railway between Wellington, and Auckland we nursed the money with tender solicitude; and, when it was spent, we had a railway and had opened up a vast area to industry and settlement. Now when we borrow our many millions year after year what do we get? Can anyone name any great railways built, any great areas opened to settlement, or even any great maiij road constructed? When a short railway into the interior to open up vast areas is suggested an inquiry is held as to whether this small section will, ac a separate unit, return i per cent, on its cost. But no inquiry is held as to returns from, the vast sums being spent on hugely expensive railways running along the sea beach. Were such inquiry made, I make bold to say that not one would stand the test. No railway can pay interest on present cost of construction. It stands to reason that when railways constructed at half the cost and running through country settled for nigh a century will not pay 2 per cent., now railways through new country at present costs cannot' return 4 per cent. —or any per cent. They are being built on an absurdly uneconomic basis. All we get for our money is a large body of citizens (and voters) employed at a great deal more than the economic value of their ' services; and with the further result that farmers must also take labour at more than its real value—or go without. EXTRAVAGANCE. It needs very little demonstration to show that economy in public . affairs is thrown to the winds. Extravagance is rampant. Does the member seeking re-

election appeal to his' constituents on the ground of his skilful and economic conduct of public affairs? Not much! His song is all of the enormous amount of public money which he has procured to be squandered in his electorate. To quote one instance: At the late election did the Minister of Education appeal to the country on the ground of the excellence of the schools, of good results achieved at minimum cost? . Did he as much as mention high thought • and plain living? By no means! The main achievement of his Department seems to have been to have lavished public money and his boast to have been the erection of high schools at Mount Albert, Palmerston North, and elsewhere at the crushing- cost of £125 to £150 per pupil for buildings alone—to say nothing of land, furniture, etc. Added to tho other burdens of the industrious is a monstrous Civil Sen-ice, notoriously overstuffed and inefficient. Tho common-senso business method of reform would appear to be not to reduce all salaries (thereby creating- universal discontent and leading to the loss of the best brains and energy in the service), but to eliminate the duffers . and tho loafers—those who only get in the way oi"" one another and seem determined to prove that "Half a, loaf is not • better than a. Government job." But then to sack Gussie would mean the loss not only of his vote but those of mother, fnthnr, s;H™v. sml auntie. The octopus nf l,h« Civil.iSflfv-icn is fl- veitl n.iid grewiny

community must courageously, grapple or it will drag thorn under. In all its various manifestations the Government of this little Dominion does a huge business—contracts and supplies for public works, railways, hospitals, schools, etc.,.etc. This gives the Government of the Day vast patronage and adds great numbers to those directly interested in the maintenance of publio extravagance—to be paid for by the workers. THE FARMERS' POSITION. At' the bottom of all accumulated loads is the broad back of the fanner—the only considerable member of the community who really earns his living—who works on a natural and economic level. But his business is not upon an economic footing in another way; farming in New Zealand is carried on at a loss. " The farmer is about in the position of a eixfoot man who has been standing in five feet of water, and now sees it beginning to rain." Such is the arresting statement of the position of the agriculturist contained.in tho. bulletin of the Department of Agriculture of the United States of America issued in October last. About a year before that a statement which caused nation-wide interest was made by a farmer. " I need a wagon, and my dealer wants the price of 650 bushels of corn; the same wagon I could buy for 200 bushels of corn before the war. The harness man wants the price of a wagon load of hides for a No. 1 harness." The position'of farmers in New Zealand is just as bad. as that of fanners in the United States, and the farming interest is relatively much more important in New Zealand than in the United States —yefc no one here appears to give it a tnought. Take wool: For the past three years the market has beenf in a state of absolute collapse, so much so that evidence was given in the Supreme Court with respect to one of the best stations in Hawkes Bay ' that the clip realised only one-third ■■ of the amount of the land tax. Even now, when wool has advanced with many flourishes of tho trumpet, what is the position? Prices have reached about the pre-war level, while all costs of production have increased enormously. Wages are much higher and less work is done; wire and ajl metal supplies up 150 per cent.; manures up 50 per cent, j seeds up 100 per cent. The position is impossible unless improvement continues so that returns will overtake costs. As I have said, farming is not on an economic basis, because it does not yield a profit.. The farmer keeps no books; but did he do so on the same system as the city business man, making proper debits' for interest on capital employed, wages for owner and members of his family actively engaged in the enterprise, etc., then I say no farm in New Zealand would show a profit. How, then, is farming carried on? Let the official bulletin of the Department of Agriculture of the U.S.A. again speak: "This is the third successive year of big crops. That is the farmer's way of trying to pull himself out of a hole of debt. He does not strike. His stake in the country outweighs his grievance. He works." This, then, is the fact; the burden of a debased currency, of pensions, of charities, of public extravagance, of protective tariffs, of artificial conditions created by trade unions and combines, of special privileges to others, of an unwieldy Civil Service," must be met by the unprotected, unpampered toilers—that is to say, in the main, by the farmers and their families ; by. the man who rises before the sun and toils unremittingly for sixteen hours without wages; by the youngsters who milk the cows before breakfast, and again aiter they return from school, without any reward or hope of reward. These be the payers of the interest on our Public Debt and other public charges; these be the providers of extravagance for others, with toil and hard living for themselves. For them no Court to fix a " cost of living," a " minimum wage "; no trade union to see that they do not work before 8 a.m. or after 5 p.m.; to take care that they do not perspire in between; to see that they get time-and-a-half •' or double' time when the union permits them to work overtime; to see that their wages are paid every week in cash down. Were butter produced on trade union want of principles it could not be sold for less than 5s per pound. THE REMEDY. There is no use in complaining of evil without suggesting a remedy. At the base of all possible remedial measures lies hard work and economy—to earn much and spend IeBS. But if success is to be achieved, all must work and all must economise—not only one class. Without much visible injury a few may loaf on the many; but when the many attempt to loaf in the few disaster will surely ensue. When the mass of the people once more get working and saving then we shall be able gradually to throw off all artificial barriers,' to emerge from our hothouse prosperity into healfny open-air economic conditions; to re-es-tablish our currency on a sound gold basis, to re-institute sincerity of contract etc. There is alwayg one other alternative: " Something may turn up "—the fatal fantastic idea. One thing is certain, auto suggestion will not go a very' long way towards it. Eminent politicians shouting out their optimisim, whistles blowing, bells ringing, flags flying, may be all right for children, but they won't put much money into the treasury.