PLIGHT OF FARMERS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21371, 21 December 1932, Page 15

PLIGHT OF FARMERS

Sir, —Statements by Mr. Edwin Salmond on behalf of a special businessmen's committee, dealing with proposals for the assistance of farmers, are very pertinent. Mr. Salmond said that "with the water squeezed out of the unjustified and inflated value the farm will be kept on by someone. Bonuses and subsidies, unless specially safeguarded, would probably get into the pockets of stock and station agents, or other mortgagees, and be of little assistance to genuine sufferers." The lesson learned is that the Labour Party's much maligned land policy is the obvious solution. Under it no farmer need ever walk off his farm, no mortgage fall due, no mortgagee foreclose. The farmer's labour would stand to hirn always in any state of the market. There would bo no boom and no depression. G. Skill.

Sir, —Farmers have read with amazement the statements of Mr. Edwin Salmond and his committee of Wellington business men—statements such as "the only factor of importance to the country as a whole is that the farm should not be allowed to go out of production"; that "a mortgagee will either compound with his farmer or replace him with another." Then there is the advice, re not helping a farmer "before farm lands reach bedrock prices." It may interest Mr. Salmond to know that the majority of land in New Zealand to-day can be bought below the cost of the bare improvements. How much lower should it sink ? Another example of the business sagacity o£ Mr. Salmond and his friends is that the price of money seems to have no relation to farming—at least, it was never mentioned by --the remarkable committee in its manifesto. Yes, a cut in interest rates would have the same value as reducing all capital values of land by 50 per cent, if Mr. Salmond can see the point. Finally, it is a great encouragement to our farmers who have been sticking to their uphill job the last three weary and almost hopeless years, to know that they have such sympathisers; as Mr. Salmond and his "business men's committee." What a joy it would be to change places for a few years i W.D.K.