WHAT IS FARM LAND WORTH ?

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 28, 2 August 1933, Page 6

WHAT IS FARM LAND WORTH ?

All the factors in production and distribution are undergoing revaluation, and it is very difficult to foresee what the balance will be in'ten years' time. On the strength of British market values, and notwithstanding the immense handicap of distance, New Zealand farm lands attained, and seek to retain, a high level of money value. Yet in Cape York Peninsula the Queensland Government has 500 square miles of land offering at a rental of 2s a square mile; and the author lon Idriess,- who quotes these figures, declares that land is productive, and suggests that all that is lacking is the transport factor. A man, drives his stock hundreds of mites, only to find on arrival at Cairns that the meat works have closed down. Whether it will pay to provide inland transport to serve cheap cattle-growing land seems to be at tlie root of the Northern Territory development question. There are many Australians who say that the opportunity offered will compel its capitalisation in these days of cheap money, but one Australian with Northern Territory experience has declared that interest on capital would not be assured even if the land were free. On top of the ordinary capital risks is the question whether the population masses in the Old World will continue to be fed by the New World or will "grow their own;"