LOANS ON LAND

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 57, 8 March 1932, Page 6

LOANS ON LAND

"Inquirer" holds that the advocates""of high exchange are chiefly concerned -with the interests of those who have lent money on land. The only way to better things is for every farmer who cannot carry on to walk off "and leave the land to the moneylenders, who took the risk during the great gambling period, and advanced money up to three and four times the value of the land. They have had a good innings of interest on over-lent money and. if they now were handed their securities back they should not have any complaint. The genuine farmer would then have a chance of buying land at a workable price, and there are thousands of land farmers in New Zealand to-day who would go back to the land if it could be obtained within reason. A lot of the farmers to-day are not farmers at all but just land gamblers, who were not iucky enough to unload at peak prices, and have been left with the land on their hands. Now they want the Government to help them to pay their interest charges at the expense of the rest of the community. You do not hear of men who invest their money m a town business, or who lend on house property running to the Government for assistance when the business does not -pay or the investment is unsound. Why should the man or institution that has' lent money on land receive special treatment? They should have known the risk they were taking, and refused to lend above a s&fe margin. The country would not then have been in the mess it is today." 1