PARLIAMENT

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 16 July 1924, Page 5

PARLIAMENT

THE FARMING COMMUNITY. IMPORTANT QUESTIONS. SPEECH BY NEW MINISTER. (BY TELEGRAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION .) WELLINGTON, July 15. Important questions concerning the farming community were discussed during the course of the debate on the Ad-dress-m-Reply in the House to-day. iJuung the sitting the new Minister for Lands (the Hon. A. D. McLeod) delivered his first speech since his elevation to Cabinet rank, and he dealt with many topics of interest to producers. Mr A. J. Murdoch (Marsden) drew attention to the reference bv Mr W D Lysnar (Gisborne) to the chairman of the Meat Board and to the nosition of the steamer Admiral Codrington. He said Mr Lysnar evidently knew something of the inner working of the Meat Boaidj but lie had told the House either too mucli or too little. It was the duty oi the Government to make the strictest enquiry into the charges against the chairman of the board, and they should also ascertain why the Admiral Godrington had been taken away from New Zealand ports and put on to other routes. It was dissatisfaction about' matters such as these which was giving birth to a Farmers’ Party in the country, and the position needed clearing up. Coming to the question of land settlement, he claimed that statistics proved that a large number of the immigrants coming to New Zealand were not going on the land, but were drift-' mg into the town. This was a phase ot the question which the new Minister tor Lands would have to tackle, just as -^ aVe devise means by which farmers’ sons would remain on the farms instead of living in the towns. He advocated better facilities tor country folk by which they could get a little more sweetness out of life. He was anticipating a great ment would take place in the lot of country settlers when the main highways policy was in full operation. L>- McLeod pointed out. that the Reform Government had re-' moved more taxation from the small producers of New Zealand than any other Government that had gone .before for at least 25 or 30 years. It hadi been stated by the member for Pahiatua (Mr J. D. Ransom) that where the Government had removed taxation it was for the benefit of its big friends) Investigations showed that somewhere about 75 per cent of the total direct' taxation of this country had been and was being collected from about 15 per. cent of the direct taxoayers. It had been suggested that the Government should have used the surpluses in reducing the public debt as had been done m Bntain. The question was oneii to argument, however, whether borrowing by the country should go on for- paving off the nnblie debt. The Minister contended that there was very little in-the principle of paying off large sums on one hand and borrowing oh the other. Coming to the question of assisting faimeis financially, the Minister said he had long held the opinion that the system of rural credits as established in Denmark was absolutely sound, because it introduced a stable system, of mortgages. One of the great curses of raimers, or, at least, of the borrowing portion of them, was short-dated mortgages. That was done away ivith under the rural credit system. As to agricultural banks, the Reform Party had. been blamed for turning then! down. They had not turned down agricultural banks. What they had done was to refuse to put the State guarantee behind them, because it was not proposed to make them subject to supervision by Parliament. Answering the objection of members that farmers had not been able to get sufficient money from the State Advances DePj)l'tment, the Minister said the reason of this was that in many cases there ivas no security behind the applications, and the State could not take over eveiy liability of every farmer in New, Zealand. . Discussing the numerous bankruptcies of farmers, he admitted that many farmers had lost their heads and paid too much for their land. Consequently some could not weather the storm, and therefore failure in certain cases was inevitable. He denied that there had been any party “°Taft” m purchasing land for soldiers. Eosses and difficulties were not going to arise in connection with lands purchased by the Government, but with private purchases by soldiers. He challenged anyone to say that any Government could at that time have lived one month had they not met the agitation which arose to get our soldiers successfully repatriated. In any case, this was not the only Government which had made losses in connection with land purchases. Referring to Mr J/ysnar’s charges against Mr D. Jones (chairman of the Meat Board), the Minister said he believed that Mr Jones should have a full opportunity of replying, and he believed that immediately on Mr Jones’ return to the Dominion he would be the first to ask that those charges be investigated. It had been said the Government had no land iiolicy, but this was not true, the best proof being that we were absorbing thousands of immigrants and there was no unemployment in the country. He proposed to give the House a great deal more information about the land nolicy ' later on. * " - .

LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL. SHORT SITTING YESTERDAY. The Legislative Council met at 2 SO p.m. to-day. Leave of absence for four days was granted the Hon. Fleming on a count of urgent public business, and leave of absence for 14 days to the Hon. Clark on account of illness. The Spiritin',list Church of New Zealand Rill, a private measure, was read a second time on tl;<? motion of the Hon. Garland, and was referred to a committee. (The Hon. MacGregor introduced a Bill to amend the Exchange Act, 1908. The Council adjourned at 2.40 p.m. till 2.30 n.m. to-morrow.