Manawatu Daily Times An Instructive Comparison

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 3497, 5 November 1926, Page 6

Manawatu Daily Times An Instructive Comparison

In another part of this issue, our readers will find some first-hand information regarding farming conditions in Argentine a country that is becoming a more serious competitor on the- British markets every year. The figures supplied by the Consul-General of this prosperous Republic are mghly instructive, particularly in so far as they by means of comparison, indicate the burden carried by the New Zealand pnmaiy producers.

In the first place the New Zealand farmer is endeavouring to raise his products on land, the capital cost of which is twice and three times that of the land cultivated by his Argentine competitor. There are still many people in New Zealand who have little sympathy with the Dominion farmers in this connection. They contend that during the years of plenty the average farmer became a land speculator, and now that the bubble has burst, they arc prepared to let him extricate himself as best he can. There may be a csrtain amount of reason in this argument, but it only holds good within certain limits.

There are many farmers who arc still farming the same lands as they were in 1914, In spite of the high prices of produce ruling for several years, these men are caiiymg a greater mortgage debt to-day than they did ten or twelve years ago. A small portion of this may be represented by improvements, but the bulk is not. There must therefore, be some other very cogent reasons for the set-back and these may be found in the comparison of conditions made by the Argentine Consul, Senor Bidouc.

Unfortunately for the farmer, the increase which has taken place is not confined to the cost of the land, but has taken place in everything he uses in the course of production and manufacture. Direct and indirect taxation, wages, high cost of implements, machinery and fertilisers, increased cost of the manufacture of raw material, increased shipping and marketing charges and, last but not least, the scarcity of capital and high rate of interest, all have combined, with the result that the farmers’ cost of production is a hundred per cent higher to-day than it was twelve years ago.

Unfortunately for the New Zealand producer, a corresponding increase in the cost of production has not taken place in the countries of his competitors, except perhaps in Australia. Denmark and the Argentine, for instance, are not handicapped with a war debt of over £7O per head of population. Canada, sheltering within the United States’ trade boom, is probably the most prosperous of the British Dominions to-day. The Siberian and Esthouian peasants, in their newly-found emancipation from serfdom, are cultivating land held at a nominal rental. All these arc factors of the gravest importance to the New Zealand farmers.

Had the cost of production increased at the same rate throughout the world this increased cost would have been passed on to the consumer. As it is, many of our competitors arc doing well at prices that mean ruination to New Zealand. It behoves the Government and the people of the Dominion, therefore, to do everything possible to lighten the cost of production. The average farmer is not asking for a reduction in the cost of his land. But he has every right to expect every help and assistance in bringing about a reduction in many of the other burdens he is carrying lone-handed to-day.

That is what the Argentine Consul meant when he said that it is not so much the foreign competition but the conditions prevailing within our,own country that are the chief causes of the New Zealand farmers’ present difficulties.