AGRICULTURAL AND INDUSTRIAL BANKS OF ISSUE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 221, 14 August 1930, Page 5

AGRICULTURAL AND INDUSTRIAL BANKS OF ISSUE.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —Leading members of the Farmers’ Union are constantly complaining because legislation is not enacted to help the primary producer to successfully market his produce. These farmers should suggest .the nature of the help they require instead of whining because non-producers will not help them. Tho Labour unions do not cry out for outsiders to help them. The legislation they want thejf get by promoting measures for their protection, and the farmers of this country deserve to suffer for not doing the same to protect their own interests. % The first essential and paramount requirement of men on the land is Agricultural and Industrial “Banks of Issue” empowered to issue legal tender paper money to finance the production and marketing of the produce of the land. Successful production, distribution and sale of the products of the land is impossible without this particular form of credit; and the man on the land who has not sufficient sense to realise this deserves to be robbed of the fruits of his labour. No parliament would refuse a united demand from the farmers of this country for the right to issue their own credit notes for use as intermediate currency until their produce is marketed for cash. .The agricultural and industrial resources of New Zealand are the economic basis of security for the issue of credit and notes issued upon this security the proper form of currency for use within this Dominion. When farmers obtain the legislative right to issue their own paper money all the dairy factories, meat freezing, fruit canning, wool manufacturing, hide curing, tallow making and other industries as well as advances for live stock, land improvements, etc., can be financed cheaply instead of paying exorbitant rates of interest, commissions, brokerages, exchanges, discounts, etc., to bankers and others. No State help or guarantee is required; simply, the legislative power to issue their own currency as an intermediate form of credit to be redeemed and withdrawn from circulation when the primary products of this country are sold for cash in this and oversea countries. This is

the financial remedy for the existing agricultural and industrial depression, and it is the only remedy that will bring about prosperity in this Dominion. Farmers should therefore unitedly ask Mr Forbes for this paramount need of'every primary producer and industrialist and he will not refuse his fellow farmers the right to finance their production and marketing of tho wealth of their land in their own way.—l am, etc., F. T. MOORE. Heretaunga Street, Palmerston North, 12th August, 1930.