FARMERS' DIFFICULTIES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17984, 9 January 1922, Page 8

FARMERS' DIFFICULTIES.

Sir,—ln the Herald of Jauuary 4, E. F. Shadbolt calk upon the mortgagee, the Government, and the banks to como to the rescue of the farmer because he cannot pay interest on fictitious values. If a man buys a bootshop and pays too muoh for it because he dreams that prices caueod by abnormal are going to last, for ever, he, in normal times, goes bankrupt and loses the cash he put mfco the business, and the mortgagee either enters into possession and runs the business, or lets it at a figure based on normal times. Why should net the like take place in the business of farming? One would imagine the farmer had been forced to take up land at £80 to £200 per acre. He did it either because he thought he would make big annual income out of it, or hoping he would be able to soil at many more pounds per acre than he paid. In sound fanning districts or countries the farmers' Alpha and Omega is stock and crops. New Zealand has heard nothing but price-of-land for the past fr-'e years. Mr. Shadbolt states that the farmers have made many sacrifices; perhaps so, but was not good cheese destroyed by incineration in this country during the war because tho producers did not like the prices offered, and did not the farmer hold up butter in cold storage while he browbeat the Home Government, aiid troops ate margarine, and civilians were rationed ljoz of butter per week in places where war meant something more than the power to buy a new Ford ? L'Allegro.