Balancing the Budget

Evening Star, Issue 23143, 17 December 1938, Page 3

Balancing the Budget

The first wool sales of the season are over and the farmer has some vague idea what his profits or losses are to be from the year’s work. That is, provided he has got his wool into these early sales; otherwise, unaccountable things may happen and he may be far 'richer or poorer than at present he anticipates. For wool is one of those mysterious commodities that may rise or fall in price practically overnight. The intricacies of the market must, one imagines, be understood by some people; but they are the chosen few and very secret are their ways. Therefore, during the major part of the year, the farmer is left in blissful uncertainty as td whether ho will balance his budget or once more declare a deficit. Matters are more uncertain than ever this year, because the price of stock in the North has been affected by the eczema complex; it .is a _ pity that veterinary science did not display more forethought than to bestow that sensational name upon a disease that is internal and bears no real resemblance to any form of eczema. However that may be, its effects were deadly enough last autumn, and the natural result is a feeling of fear abroad in the land. Has the disease come to stay, and whoso lock has been affected ? Is it wise to invest more heavily in sheep? And this is a vital question at a time when the impossible condition of the labour market has made many farmers turn anxious eyes from dairy cows to sheep. Rumour has it that the stock sales later may be _ poor _ affairs, because buyers are afraid of infected stock, or of investing in expensive sheep _ that may later develop the disease with a change of pasture. Therefore, while his mind is somewhat relieved by the satisfactory, if unsensational price of wool, the sheep farmer is still left in doubt as to the returns from his surphis ■beep—source of about half his income. And this is, perhaps, one of the most trying features of his life—not to mention that of his’ long-suffering wife. Ho townspeople, or any of the wageearners of the country, ever pause to reflect what it is like always to be in this l state of doubt and uncertainty ? The difference between a good price and a poor one may mean tie halving or . doubling of the whole income. In the last three years sheep farmers have seen wool prices fluctuate in a way that has, represented a difference of perhaps a hundred and fifty pounds to the man with; even a very small flock. Three pounds a week may not sound much in these affluent days, but it may mean the difference between hardship and comfort, the possibility of affording a boarding school for a child, or the necessity of handicapping it by the solitude of another year’s correspondence work. It may mean more than this. Since costs do not diminish but soar always higher, and since the farm, as everyone knows, must always come first, it may mean the difference between all kinds of sacrifices and irritating economies and some measure of ease and release from worry. Shearing prices—higher since wool has dropped lower—must be paid; interest and rates and fertiliser must be provided for; improvements must be carried on or the land will slip back and the little gained will be lost again._ Therefore, since all these are necessities, the economies must come from such items of the budget as clothes, doctors, holidays, conveniences in the house, and labour on the farm. The land must, at all costs, continue to produce, so if anything is to bo sacrificed it must be the producer—and his wife and family.

A good year, on the other hand, moans all sorts of unexpected joys, ft means the difference between the local sole charge school—or that excellent but lonely _ correspondence cours" —and the boarding school of which the parents have dreamed. It means the possibility of a holiday in winter for the farmer and even for his wife—that

Written by M.E.S., for the ‘Evening Star *

holiday they havp been putting off for six-years ot ’-so. It may even run to a new stove‘and an electric lighting plant if the farm he one of those beyond the reach of electric power. On the farm it means another contract let for fencing—that is, provided you can find_ anyone sufficiently philanthropic to condescend to work on a farm; it means the purchase of a better bull and more expensive rams. But, above all, it means to both the farmer and his wife the splendid feeling that at last tho farm is beginning to make good, that they are not' going to .be failures after all.

It is the uncertainty that is so trying. The small sheep farmer can never plan ahead; every idea has to depend on the entirely problematical price he will get for his stock and his wool. The wage earner undoubtedly has his troubles; it is always possible that he may lose his job—although in these days it is much more likely that he will leave it for a better one. 111-health has always to be dreaded, although nowadays it is better provided for. Allowing for such contingencies, he has the comfort of knowing to some extent what his resources for the year will be. He can say with some measure of confidence: “‘This year we can afford a better car,” or, “ The old one must do if we are going to buy a bach at the seaside.” So much can b© set aside for clothing, for housekeeping, for education, for those vague but formidable sundries that include doctors’ and dentists’, bills, and so on; there is still usually a margin left for pleasure, as there ‘ought to be—that is, if the constant rush of new cars to attractive beaches means anything. The dairy fanner has his troubles; at the moment they are more acute than the sheep farmer’s, for the scarcity of labour is becoming something of a nightmare, and cows must be milked, if he has to do it alone. His work is monotonous, exacting, and anxious; but at present he knows his position about finance, if not about anything else. He need, not tear open the paper to scan the falling price of butter, and then sit with furrowed brows subtracting from it the rising price of everythmg else. He can be sure of what bo will have to come and go upon when major expenses are paid; and if that is little enough and in no way compensates for the work involved, at least he has not that demon of uncertainty mocking him in addition to his other woes. .

But for the sheep farmer it seems to be always more or less of a gamble. That iis whv the day of the first wool sale is such an anxious time in the backblocks horns; the farmer’s wife stops her work continually to listen to that distracting jangle of sound that means that the sale is on; her husband comes in on every excuse so that ho may ask; “How does it seem to be going?” and both know that every penny’s rise is going to make a very considerable difference to them. All the year’s profits to hang in the balance like that! All the difference to come in that tiny space of time allowed for the sale of each individual clip! A year’s poverty or plenty to be decided bv that fall o'f the hammer. ‘in bad years, as they listened with downcast faces to the meagre bids, they consoled each other by saying that, of course, there was still the stock to come. Even if wool was disappointing, the price of sheep might yet be good enough to make it possible to carry on without debt. Last night before she went to sleep the farmer’s wife had felt that she could not face disappointment again; after it was all over, as she lay awake contemplating the various economics that must be made if they wore to manage, she told herself that perbans flic sheep fair would make it possible to balance that budget after all. Surely Pope must have been foreseeing the sheep farmer when he said that

hope springs eternal in the human breast. But this year, if ho is not unduly elated, the tanner is not utterly cast down. “ A penny better than last year,” be says cheerily, and forgets just bow bad last year was. Or else be reminds his wife of the days when wool brought fourpenen and fiveponco —forgetting that ho was younger then and expenses not nearly so heavy. And, in any case, it’s a working price, ho cays detenliinedly. Me had not expected much, having been a sheep farmer long enough to know better; and at least “ wo know where wo are ” —and there’s comfort in that.