EQUALITY OF SACRIFICE

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 30, 5 February 1935, Page 8

EQUALITY OF SACRIFICE

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—With the desire to help settle two or three points where the Business Men's Committee are at variance with the proposed new Mortgage Bill I would submit the following for public consideration.

, The committee's report contains the following:—"The committee believes and has urged on Mr. Coates that there are no producers today who are efficient and^ competent men, and who have sufficient equity in thpir properties, who cannot borrow at very low rates of interest whatever money they can use profitably in their business." Who is to. judge what is sufficient equity under today's'conditions? And if they can-borrow then it must be remembered that it is not for/such that the Bill is being brought down. Statements such as the above are quite irrelevant to the , discussion except to further,,prove that those who do not require'assistance Jean get it, just as those least requiring assistance from the high exchange received the most, and the higher prices of their produce went the more they received in bonuses.

The committee also says: "The more successful the Corporation is in raising cheap money; and lending to farmers the greater will be the very grave risk of an inflationary increase in land values." On several occasions I have pointed out in the "Evening Post" columns the necessity of the - Government 'tafring steps ,to fix the values of land on the new valuations, and insisting that the unearned increment of'the values in land be, devoted .to Jhe National Exchequer. It is preposterously unfair to tax tile community for £30,000,000 or £40,000,000 of money to save, the farmers and the country and then allow those farmers to have all • the profit in the future value of land. Surely some arrangement can be come to to avoid such a glaring injustice to taxpayers. The other point I would briefly refer to is this:'"The committee has already, indicated its unqualified condemnation of the proposal to present an arbitrary, equity in his property to a mortgagor at the expense of the mortgagee." It is most unfair, as it points out, to allqw a man with £100,000 property at least £20,000 equity,, or to fix a set amount. If as previously suggested' ' all mortgages, and equity were written down1 pro' rata, based on the new valuation, this would be an attempt to make, all sections contribute to reconstruction, and would be fair and just seeing that none of them caused the slump or low1 prices, but all are equally interested in preserving the country and the industry. - Equality of sacrifice is the basis of this suggestion.—l am, etc., EQUITY.