ADVANCES TO SETTLERS

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIII, Issue 10602, 11 March 1895, Page 4

ADVANCES TO SETTLERS

The Australians are very fond of deprecating what they are pleased to call our experimental legislation; but a cablegram published this morning shows that our neighbours across the Tasman Sea are contemplating an experiment of their own which will bear a very close resemblance to one of the most important features of Mr Seddon’s policy. The farmers of Victoria, like the farmers in every other part of the world, are suffering from low prices. Hundreds of them have given up the attempt to live on the land, and hundreds more are preparing to abandon their holdings. With interest high and wheat low it is impossible for these men to continue the struggle for existence, and public opinion has at last been aroused to a proper conception of their critical condition. The Argus, which, as the organ of Australian Conservatism, was inclined to sneer at Mr Ward’s, cheap,; money now- seesf tot J a- reductioa ; in-,

the rate of interest would be. an enormous relief to the Victorian farmers. It no longer stipulates for a large margin of security, but urges that advances should be made to the producers, not on the present value of their land, but on the value it will acquire by the expenditure of the loan money. If Mr Ward had proposed anything of this kind nine months ago our contemporary would have condemned it as the height of financial folly. A closer acquaintance with the effects of agricultural depression has evidently had a very salutary influence upon the minds of the Victorian capitalists. The Age is, naturally enough, quite as emphatic as the Argus in its advocacy of immediate and liberal relief to the farmers. It suggests a loan for the purpose, floated ou Credit Foncier stock with a Government guarantee, and has no doubt that the money would be speedily and safely absorbed. All this, we need scarcely say, is the highest testimony to the soundness of Mr Ward’s proposals. While Australia continues to imitate our “ experimental legislation ” we can afford to regard with equanimity the adverse criticism of some of her public men.