BANKS AND FARMING

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 1, 1 July 1926, Page 6

BANKS AND FARMING

In a lengthy letter H. G. Richardson (East Takaka) comments upon the Bank of New Zealand long-term mortgage proposals and other questions of farming finance. He expresses the opinion that the proposal is a profit and dividend-hid-ing scheme, and if the banks generally wished to help the public they would do so by reducing their charges. Longdated loans, he contends, may help individual farmers, but they will not solve the greater problem which has its root in over-capitalisation, "Owing to land booms of the past brought about by our present speculative system of land holding, the farmer has agreed to pay more money for the land than it is worth. Personally, I see' only one'remedy for this, and that is drastic State interference with the present method of land holding on the lines of the Labour Party's usehold scheme. Unfortunately, public opinion is not ready for this. . . Without attempting to be a seer, allow me to venture to predict that the present problems of the farmer will be settled by him by a policy of co-operation with the consumers through marketing control boards, coupled with a better system of organisation on the production side. At present the farmer produces for profit; m the future he will produce to satisfy the needs of the consumers under a pre-organjsed plan, which will be ascertained by reference to statistics. This will completely cut out all uncertainty as to prices, for the whole thing will be cut and dried before he applies his labour to the soil. As to organisation on the production side,' the need for this is tremendous. Under our individualistic system of farming there is unnecessary waste of money and labour power owing to the individual not being able to uti' lise labour-saving machinery because of inability to finance. I venture to predict that in the future farmers will organise themselves into companies along the lines of rural communities. There will then arise the need for trained experts to- direct their labours to profitable channels, and to utilise every acre of land to the best advantage. When this stage is reached the farmer will no more wish to have the freehold of a particular block of land than he will want the roan in the moon."