HIGHER BANK RATE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20480, 4 February 1930, Page 12

HIGHER BANK RATE.

FARMERS' DIFFICULTY.

PROPOSAL BY MR. f*OLSON.

[BY TELEGRAPH. —IT.ESS ASSOCIATION. J NEW PLYMOUTH, Monday.

"It is an unfortunate timo for tho banks to raise the overdraft rate when fanners are requiring all tho finance they can get in order to hold their wool,' said Mr. W. J. Poison, M.P. Curtailment of imports was important, but careful discrimination on the part of the banks might have effected that curtailment without penalising the farming community. Under the circumstances tho Government might assist greatly by supporting the bonds of the Rural Intermediate Credits Board to enable it to lend against wool as it did against wheat. That was not a question of wool control, which was highly controversial, but merely a matter of ordinary finance. " Any essential commodity which is 50 per cent, below the cost of production must recover in prico to some extent at all events," said Mr. Poison. Advances at the present brokers' values at 6JI per cent, up to £2OOO, the Rural Intermediate Credits Board's limit, could safely be made against .wool in approved stores in order to give tho market a chance to rally and would be of material benefit to | the farming community. The question j was of sufficient national importance, Mr. Poison thought, to warrant the Government taking action. The Hon. G.' W. Forbes, Minister of Lands and Agriculture, in reply to a telegram from Mr. Poison, had expressed the opinion that such a proposal should come from the farming organisations with some degree of unanimity , before the Government considered it. "Tho proposal is one to which producers might give consideration," concluded Mr. Poison. "Tho necessary machinery already exists."