MORE PRODUCERS WANTED.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume X, Issue 243, 30 October 1920, Page 3

MORE PRODUCERS WANTED.

. r TO THE EDITOR.] Sir, —While the greet majority of people are concerned about the high cost of living and blaming one another for the cause, I would like to call attention to one of the roots of the tree I of evil that is bearing much fruit and | has been doing so for quite a long lime I — root which quite a lot of us would not like to see destroyed—and that is ’ our present system of usury, which is > growing worse as time goes on. We are now in such a position that we cannot do without usury. The war has made visible the effect the financing has had upon the high cost of land and living, far above that which is necessary. In raising money to meet the cost of the war, we have asked A and B to lend the money and C to pay it back with interest added, consequently C (the producer) has to charge his products with the cost of keeping A and B. Not only has C to add the costs to his products, but all products pass through the hands of the wholesale and retail houses which bring them up to double the actual interest paid. The interest on one hundred millions will enable about 1(5,000 or 17,000 families to draw £.300 per year each family. Our New Zealand national debt will enable about thirtythree thousand families to draw £.300 per year each family. The little new harbour loan will enable about forty families to draw £.300 per year each family and if we consider the total private mortgages of the Dominion, well it is simply staggering, and we have all these people who are drawing interest out of our population of about one and a quarter million, shouting out to the

producer to “produce more!’’ “speed up!’’ “get a move on!’’ Now, what the country needs is not to produce more, but more producers, and to effect this one person must not hang around the other fellow’s door begging interest to live upon—he mustn’t be sitting upon the farmers’ fence demanding some of the cattle, or crops, or at the office of the factory Remanding some of the fabrics or products, whatever they may be, but he must be a producer or do something useful, not a . And to effect this the State must be the usurer, charging the people with an interest, 3 per cent. 2 per cent, to pay the principal and 1 per cent, for costs and pensions. The result would he that all able persons would work to keep themselves and not be a charge upon the other fellow. If a person had to provide for his own family alone, with 1 our improved machinery - we could do it on two hours’ work per day, but to l.eep a compulsory guest keeps one’s nose on the grindstone always. If we desire a living at right prices let us get straight at it, do away with our present system of usury, and produce ourselves, and not ask the other fellow to do it for us—do it for humanity’s sake, for the sake of posterity, for honour’s sake.—l am ,etc., % ’

i GEORGE BELL. Hastings, Oct. 26, 1920. | [The correspondent misapplies the word usury. In the dictionary the definition is given ‘‘illegal interest on money.” Investors in war loans and development loans are not in any sense ‘‘usurers.” Mostly they are producers and workers who by energy and enterprise have accumulated capital for investment. A large volume of trust money, administered on behalf of widows and orphans; is also invested in these loans. Usurers do not invest in them because the rate of interest is limited to 54 per cent.; they want 20, 50 or even 100 per cent, on their lending. The four essentials for production are land, labour, capital, and organisation; each is dependent on the other. It is yet to be learnt that production can be effectively maintained with one or the other of these essentials absent. Such whole-hog reformers have discovered this by experience. The altruistic sentiment is to be commended for general adoption; but man will have to change from what he >s to-day— must be born again, before he will substitute’ philantrophy for profit, which is the present incentive for the doing of useful work. —Ed. H.B.T.]