Farmers’ Banks

Northland Age, Volume 27, Issue 44, 4 November 1927, Page 6

Farmers’ Banks

The following is a copy of a further letter to the Hon. J. A. Young, Minister of Health, from the organis' r, Dominion Bank Association "At gatherings of farmers in this district settlers are voicing the opinion that Mr Coates’ failure to relieve the existing rural depression is a betrayal ot the confidence hitherto placed in him. Settlers who two years ago would have cheerfully voted him ten yeats of office now say that should he fad this year to grant them the Agricultural Bank they ask for they will never support his candidature again. They regard his pre-election statement ‘ihnt farmers would always receive first consideration from him because they were the backbone of the country, producing 90 per cent of the wealth from winch his own and every other man’s salary was paid' as a dishonoured pledge. These farmers know that traders, merchants and speculators financed by the Associated Banks of New Zealand are gambling *fvith their produce and robbing them of 50 (ter cent, of its value. The thousands of tons of potatoes and the thousands of head of catlle and other intermediate farm products consumed every week in this country are paid for by the public in the prpportions of 50 per rent to middlemen and 50 per cent to the primary producers. A Dominion Farmers’ Bank of Lsue would secure for the producer his full 100 per cent cash of production value —and Mr Coates 'refusal to permit farmers to reap •he full fruits of their labour is the sole cause of the severe rural depression now prevailing.”