RUINED FARMERS

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 37, 12 August 1927, Page 12

RUINED FARMERS

DECAY IN BRITAIN

ATTACK ON GOVERNMENT

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, 15th June.

A special correspondent, writing to the "Daily Mail," tells of heavy and repeated losses among the farmers of Northamptonshire. They cannot sell their produce at an economic figure, because the costs of production—which cannot be further reduced under present conditions—are too high. Many have reached the limit of their resources, and others are nearing it. Men who began farming with substantial capital have lost it all. Farms which have been in the same family for generations are being given up. "You cannot paint the jncture as black as it is," said one farmer. "Not only the land which was ploughed up during the war but other land has been laid down to grass in the vain hope that the situation might be met. But even grazing, usually considered the safest branch of farming, has become unremunerative.''

Mr. C. W. Newton, who was secretary of the Northamptonshire Agricultural Executive Committee during the war, and who now audits many of the farm and estate accounts in the country, says: "A number of the older farmers are giving up at Michaelmas because they cannot continue to see their substance diminish each year. Farmers as a class are shrewd purchasers, and most of the items on the debit side are as low as possible, the largest being, of course, wages ana rent. Wages are fixed by the Wages Committee under the Wages Act, and in the minority of cases rent is much too high, whether it consists of an actual rent paid to a landlord or of interest on equity, plus mortgage interest, where the farmer is his own landlord. Credit facilities at a low rate of interest to both landlords and owneroccupiers could materially reduce the rent. Many farmers are paying as much as 6 per cent, on mortgage interest." LOSS OF CAPITAL. Opinions of farmers in the county are to the effect that they simply cannot rua at a profit. One young man. started farming about six years ago with £9000 capital. Now he has had to sell up and is left without a penny, to look for some sort of job to support himself and his wife and family. There are many cases like that.

Mr. J. M. Eady, president of the county branch of the National Farmers 5 Union, farming 800 acres, said: "Without exaggeration, half the farmers in the country are already ruined. The position is realy appalling, and unless something is done there will soon not be a farm left. I myself shall certainly thrown up the sponge if, things don't alter. Last year we made a loss of £915. I can recall the 'eighties when wheat was 14s 6d a quarter, but the position is much more desperate than that now."

Labour costs are 120 per cent, above pre-war rates; rates are said to bo much too high; and freights are not in favour of the farmer;

In the bad state of the farming industry the "Daily Mail" finds an opportunity of attacking the Government. Whether the journal finds greater satisfaction in revealing the country's troubles or in launching a campaign against the party in power is a moot point

"Plough land is going out of cultivation," says the "Mail," in a leading article, "and meat, milk, and potatoes are ceasing to pay because of foreign competition. Yet the farmer was advised by Ministers to turn his attention to these branches of farming. No wonder that he is losing hope and beginning to despair of the politicians." "The fact, unfortunately, is that the Government, under the influence of the Socialist element in the Cabinet and "outside of it, has been so busy trying to force the ridiculous votes for 'Flappers' scheme upon an unwilling Conservative Party that it has had no time to attend to the misfortunes of British agriculture. Mr. Baldwin promised in his election address of 1924 to restore agriculture ' to a more prosperous condition as an essential balancing element in the economic and social life of the country.' But he seems to have forgotten thi3 pledge as completely •as his promise to cut down wasteful expenditure."