WITHOUT DEFEAT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22629, 22 July 1935, Page 4

WITHOUT DEFEAT

A STORY WITH A CALL TO A NATION ■ By Oliver Black. Chapter Four. I. FARM LABOUR Aa he finished hie breakfast the next morning Oliver had a brainwave. He asked the waitress if there was a Farmers' Club fn the village. She directed him down the road. Oliver found it, went up the rickety stairs, and discovered a caretaker stacking bottles underneath a trestle table in a sparselyfurnished little room. He asked for the name and address of the most influential farmer in the neighbourhood, and was told his name was Ridley. Oliver went back to the hotel and telephoned to Mr Ridley. He explained that he would like to see over Ridley's farm, and received a cordial invitation. Ridley arranged to meet him,,, outside the Post Office in the next town, some five miles along the road to Wanganui, at 2 o'clock. Oliver spent the morning reading the paper and wandering round the village, and after a leisurely lunch set off for his rendezvous. On , the steps of the Post Office stood a heavily-built, red-faced man, in a thick tweed suit, his legs encased in black leggings. "Ah! " said Oliver to himself, "my farmer." He cot out of the car and introduced himself, apologising for taking up a farmer's time. "Huh!" said Mr Ridley. "Forget it. Anything that takes me away from work for a tew minutes is a godsend. Let's have a nip before we start." He

turned into an hotel. Oliver followed, protesting that he did not drink in the afternoon. His protests were unavailing, so he sipped a finger ale while Ridley wielded a whisky bottle. "Yes," said Ridley, "you won't find my farm like the ones you'v e been used to at home. We can't afford to do things the way you can,over there. Ho labour and no money." Oliver said that he was not accustomed [ to any kind of farm, and that he was sure Mr Ridley's would prove a revelation to him. "Well, you know, it's not what it might be, but it's not eo bad," replied Ridley with a smirk. He tossed down his drink: " Shall we be getting along? " They climbed into Oliver's car and Ridley guided him through the town, and up a side road. Leaving the car they walked through a gate, and up a metalled drive to an apology of a lawn in front. of the house. In the course of the walk Ohyer learned that Ridley had bought the farm some few years ago, and had recently gone in for pigs on a moderately extensive scale. He also discovered that the work was done by Ridley him-self-and a boy of 15. They crossed the lawn to the milking .shed. There was a good deal of mess and untidiness, but the place bore a fairly prosperous air. Ridley showed him the pigstye with great pride. Oliver saw two ( large pens crowded with pigs. "Ah," explained Ridley, "I believe in crowding pigs together. They sort of |

like company. I know at home you only put live or six to a stye, but I don't hold with that. Besides, with things as thej* are now I can't afford to put up any .more buildings." ;" A water pipe leading from a tank behind the milking shed across the yard to a trough in the nearest paddock was leaking badly, and a thin but regular trickle of water was forming great pools in the mud of the yard. "I must apologise for the mees in the yard," said Ridley. " I've' been meaning to get that pipe fixed for months. I really must do something about it before the winter. The truth is I can't afford it. With things as they are to-day, 15s for a new valve is a lot of money." Oliver wondered how many days' drinks and cigarettes and seats at the pictures represented the cost of a new valve. Ridley leant on a gate and gazed complacently across the. paddocks to where the cows were slowly working their way in the direction of the farmyard as the time for the afternoon milking drew nearer. "And are you broke, too?" asked Oliver. • " I can't say I'm broke —but I'm not making any money. Why, damn it, if 11 kept any accounts and could reckon up • how I stood I believe I should find I was losing money! " I Oliver put to him the three categories suggested to him by the man at Levin. "Well, you can say that about 50 per cent, of the farmers are making money in the sense that I'm making money. I pay my way and live but I never seem to have any money in the bank.. There are hundreds of things that want doing ' about the farm* and want doing badly if I had the money."' " Isn't : the position really this," replied , Oliver, smiling, " you are making money but not, saving money; you're making money and spending it? " I " I don't know about that," returned Ridley. "What I do know is that whenever the time comes for me to pay my mortgage interest I don't seem to have any money in the bank." They walked back to the farm buildings and through a store room into the" milking _ shed. > Oliver saw an incredibly ancient weighing machine in the corner, stiff and rusty with age. " We use that for weighing pigs," said Ridley. "/It doesn't look very accurate," suggested Oliver. "It isn't, but that doesn't matter much. We know about how much they weigh. As a matter of fact I've been meaning to scrap it for years. But now, of course, I haven't the money to buy another." They returned to the house and Oliver said sood-bye. "Delighted," said Ridley, "come and see me again some day." Oliver drove thoughtfully back to the town.

11. Over a cup of tea in the hotel, Oliver got into conversation with a big man ni glasses, who said his name was Mann. Oliver found that he had been a dairy farmer in the neighbourhood for many years, and asked him how he was doing. Just scratching a living now," 6aid Mann, staring gloomily at nothing. "There was a time when farming paid, but that is years ago, now." Oliver tried him also with the Levin man's percentages. " Well," said Mr Mann, " 50 per cent, of the farmers aren't actually broke." "Are 20 per cent, of the rest in a hopeless condition? "

"I think 20 per cent, is a high figure; 15 per cent, are.''

"And are hopeless farmers who never ought to have been on the land at all? " "A good many of 'em," Mann admitted. ''What of the rest?" " Oh, the rest have got heavy mortgages tied around their necks." " Those are the ones who will chiefly benefit by the Government's proposals for the reduction of their mortgage debts? " Mann spat contemptuously but acerrately into the fireplace. "Government! It's done nothing for anyone. No Government ever has done anything for me—that's why I've joined the Labour Party." "Oh, so you are a member of the Labour Party? Since when? " a little while back." "A new recruit, eh?" remarked Oliver, and asked Mann what he thought the Labour Party would do for him. Mann said that they would guarantee prices at a fair level. "And where is the money to come from? " asked Oliver.

"The Labour Party will take over the banks' credits."

.Now I've heard that before. Can you explain to me what it means? " Mann said that, inasmuch as a bank could give credit to people in excess of their cash holdines, that credit took the torm of wealth of which a Government could take control and use for euch purposes as relief of unemployment and guaranteeing prices. " The whole system of private banking is all wrong," said Mann. "It puts a man and a business into the hands of tile bankers."

We'd all of us be in a pretty poor way if it wasn't for the banks," replied Oliver. " You borrow money from them and then curse them when they lend it to you, because you say it puts you in their

hands. And you do not seem to understand that this magic ' credit' you talk about isn't a form of cash that can be handed out at all. It's merely borrowing. Sooner or later someone has to put up the cash for every penny of credit, or. to be more accurate, for every penny obtained on credit. The whole basis of credit is simply that the lender has confidence in the borrower—feels sure of getting his money back." " The banks' creditg are different from ordinary lending money." \ "Why? Bank credit merely means the credit it allows to its customers. If the Government took over the banks, no one would be any better off uhless-tne Government gave credit to people who were unsound and could not repay the loan. As soon as they started doine that, the whole edifice would topple over." Mann admitted that what Oliver said sounded right. " I think you've got it wrong somewhere, though," he added, " I must ask our Labour candidate about it." Oliver laughed. "If he can explain what he means by ' taking the banks' credits' and how they can be U6ed for guaranteeing you Is 3d for butter-fat indefinitely, he will be doing something that no one else has

yet been able to do! " Oliver wondered how Mann would like some of the more fundamental ideas of the Labour Party, such as nationalisation of the means of production. He supposed that would include Mann's farm, and smiled at the thought of Mann being nationalised. "Is the Labour Party going to nationalise land?" asked Oliver presently. " I don't just know that for certain. They ought to. Take all the land, let it at economic rents to the farmer, and compensate the mortgagees by giving them Government bonds." " Very nice. More money to be found by the Government," said Oliver. " Don't you people realise that most of the people in this country are connected with fanning, and that the people have to find the money the Governmment spends, so that guaranteed prices and so forth would ,be guaranteed largely by the farmers? The farmers subsidising themselves is what it almost comes to! A fat lot of good that would be! No, give me this Gov-

ernment's way of tackling the situation every time. Helps the mortgagor and mortgagee to make the best of a bad bargain, and if they won't, then make 'em." Mann shook his head and remarked that the land ought to be freed from its burden of mortgages by i legislation. "What about the poor mortgagee * asked Oliver. "He shouldn't be allowed to have an interest in the land." " But, after all, a mortgagee is only a man from whom you've borrowed mon?y! If you lend me five bob you expect me to pay it back again, don't you? "Ah!" said Mann solemnly, "that's different,'* i "Is it? How?" " Because it's not on mortgaged land." " Dear me," said Oliver, the debtor should be released from the whole ot hie debt because he gave the creditor land as security for it?. Is that right? " " Why, of course," replied Mann. Oliver fell into silent wonder at the • simple selfishness of such a creed. And this wasn't a man fighting a hopeless struggle for existence like, the widow he had met yesterday. This was a man, not burdened with an excessive mortgage, a man who ought apparently to have been in as good a position to-day as Wilson, if he had the same ability. . . . They turned into the main street of the town. "Anyhow," said Mann, " I don't very well understand all this mortgage relief the Government'e arranging, and I don't think anyone else does, either." "So you've joined the Labour Party because no Government has ever done anything for you, eh?" asked Oliver. "Why should any Government do anything for you? You seem to have got along pretty well without their assistance/' " That's what a Government is for — to do things for me. That's why I vote at aIL And perhaps the Labour lot will do something. They say the will, anyhow." "You don't call the Ottawa agreement or the reduction in the number of the unemployed or the raising of the rate of exchange, or the balancing of the country's Budget, or the trade revival that is definitely in evidence, or the mortgagors' relief doing any- | thing for you, then? " i Mann stared at Oliver.

How have any of those things, put money in my pocket?" he asked. "Actual hard cash, I mean?" . the test of a government, is it? " " It's my test, all right," said Mann firmly. Oliver made a gesture of despair. " Now," said he, " I'll tell you how much money your Labour Party will put in your pocket." He related the experience of England, and the soaring rates in municipalities under the Labour regime. He spoke of Poplar and other boroughs, with rates up to almost impossible heights. Mann listened aghast. " But that sort of thing couldn't happen here." he protested. "Why not " asked Oliver. "Your Labpur Party talks of nothing except spending money—higher wages, higher relief payments, guaranteed prices «nd so on. Spend, spend, spend; and it's ihe money of you and your friends that they will be spending." Mann smiled uneasily. "They won't try any'games on like that here. If they do, they won't last a day, and I'd' be one of the first to see that they didn't." Oliver laughed sardonically. " Come along to the club, anyhow, and meet the boys," said Mann, getting up. "Thanks very much." They left the hotel and walked up the road. (To be continued)