FARMING POLICY

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 144, 21 June 1933, Page 11

FARMING POLICY

LESSONS OF THE PAST i REDUCTION OF COSTS .j Addressing the- annual conference of the- Royal' Agricultural Society this afternoon, tho president (Mr. L. R. C. Macfarlane) urged farmers to take heed of the past in shaping their future policy. They recognised now that success cam© from hard work and good management, and not from borrowed money. No doubt in tho past many of them had made- the fatal mistake of clearing their land instead of their mortgages. Today they had to make farming pay by reducing costs and by cheaper and more efficient methods of working, and any future development would have to bo done out of the resultant profits, not with second mortgage money. ROAD TO RECOVERY. '' We must not be Winded ,by the promise of higher prices. Our real road to reeovcry is along the line of reducing our costs," said Mr. Macfarlane. "So much that wo need is still far too dear, and only by our restraint will we bring the prices of these articles down. Money is falling fast in lending value and, bad as fanning is today as ; a business proposition, wo can get cold comfort from the fact that money invested in tho safest of financial securities today does not return above 3J per cent, on today's price, while industrial stocks, in this country are quitb hopeless. On the face of it the old despised farm mortgage, so much abused by State interference and legal mismanagement in tho past, will soon again come into its own." Mr. Macfarlaue pointed out that it' was to their mutual advantage to maintain confidence in land- investment. Competition in that, as in other things, would bring down interest rates. In the future farmers might even . invest some of their, profits in secure outside investments as far as possible from primary produce, so that during future slumps they would have something to fall back on. Ho emphasised tho importance of better stock and thorough cultivation of the soil. Science, he said, could help only on very broad lines, for each farm ' had its- own research problems to face. Land today must bo held by soundy practical men trained to business as well as.agriculture. . STATE EXPERIMENTS. The present was no time fbr State experiments'.with land schemes, continued :Mr. Macfarlane. Even the present small farms scheme, if allowed to develop beyond reasonable means, would produce a. crop of noxious weods, bad debts, scrub stock, and discontented men and women. Leadership among tho younger farmers of tho country was urgently needed today. Young men were required who would come forward and welcome the responsibility of directing the country's affairs. It was not sufficient merely to talk about bonds of Empire. They were in,fair competition with the rest of tho worlds and they could not escape from that competition and continue to enjoy their present standard of living. They, had resources far beyond those of any other nation, and it depended entirely on how those, resources were used and developed whether they would continue to be a. great nation. Tho Royal Agricultural Society was playing its, part by maintaining and improving tho quality of the livo stock in the Dominion.