BLEEDING FARMERS WHITE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20721, 14 November 1930, Page 14

BLEEDING FARMERS WHITE.

Sir,—The recommendations of the Railway Commission re increasing freights--behind which tho Minister of Railways shelters himself in announcing increases—include advances in tho rates for fer- ' tilisers. lime, potatoes, road metal, fruit, chaff and hay. We now have the announcement that tho additional revenue* from two of the items is expected to he " from two separate classes of artificial manures, £91,000; from carriage of road metal (largely used in country roads), £29.000." We have not yet heard what the increases on lime, potatoes, fruit, chaff and hay are expected to yield, but in the meantime the. amount of'increases fixed, to come from the farmer's pocket, is £120.000! This comes, in addition to the poll tax of 30s cash imposed oil the farmer and his sons, at a time when the farmer is at his wit's end where to get tho money from to buy his fertiliser?, when every product of tho farm is selling at ruinous rates. Bankruptcy threatens great numbers of farmers—in spite of hero:c efforts by hard vrork nud economy to avoid it—and the additions to railway rates will come as the last straw to break their backs and deprive them of all hope. J. Thokne?.. 231, Parnell Road.