MORTGAGES AND MONEY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22631, 24 July 1935, Page 6

MORTGAGES AND MONEY

TO THE EDITOR Sib, —In your issue of the 19th inst., in a leading article under the title “ Mortgages and Money,” you criticise the remits and consequent resolutions dealt with by the annual conference of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union, and deal especially with the resolutions regarding the Mortgage Corporation, and final adjustment of mortgages legislation. And then you express your opinion that “ the farmers are a most pessimistic class.’ May I ask whence you derive that opinion? Do you deduce it from the unquestionable fact that when the full tide of depression swept this Dominion the heavily tariff protected industries reduced outlay immediately by reducing hands and curtailing output, whilst the farmers met the depression by concentrating on enhanced production in every branch of pastoral and agricultural production of exportable products, creating a record in output maintained to the present day in the face of a continual drop in prices of every primary product, and an equally constant increase in the cost of production? If these facts be evidence of pessimism amongst farmers, where will you find your optimists? As for the palpably political px-opa-ganda of the Minister of Industries and Commerce, relating to alleged assistance given by the Coalition Government for the relief of farmers, to which you refer “ as having been given with the object of bridging the gap between costs of production and prices received in overseas markets,” we are told by some folk of experience “that a half-truth is the worst form of lying,” and I have no hesitation in affirming that the major portion -of the Minister’s list of alleged _ benefits exists in name only, whilst in the instance of the alleged assistance given by the Government in the “free carriage of lime” he claims credit for a regulation, made in the interests of closer land settlement and railways revenue, many years before any member of the present Government made his advent in political life. The credit for that service to the railways and agricultural development belongs to Sir Joseph Ward and Sir John M'Kenzie, and is now some 40 years old. One is left wondering at the presumption that claims it as an act of assistance from the Coalition Government. But we have the subsidy on manures relief. Will it bear analysis? This wonderful measure gives to the farmer who uses phosphate an average reduction of from 10d to Is 6d per acre in the cost of manuring. But on a six-ton truck of produce from Middlemarch to Dunedin the freight cost has been increased from 40 per cent, to 50 per cent., or approximately 10s to I2a per truck, or 2s to 2s 4d per acre production costs. So that with one hand was taken away double that given with the other. And in this connection be it noted that, with the institution of the “ free carriage of agricultural lime ” by Sir Joseph Ward, it was laid down by specific and definite agreement with lime kiln owners that in return for the increase in demand for lime ensured by

the “free carriage," the lime kiln own ere were not to raise prices beyond legitimate increased overhead costs. The price of shell lime at the local works was 13s per ton. Tp-day_it is 26s per ton. Into whose pocket is the “ relief of free lime carriage ” going—that of the farmers or that of the lime kiln proprietors? As for the subsidised farm labour, if by this is meant the 4A scheme, one can only characterise it as one instance where the Unemployment Board reached the very heights of ineptitude and gross incapacity. I could illustrate, but content myself with referring you or any of your readers to the returns, 'which 1 presume are available, of the number of men in Otago now employed under the 4A scheme, the only scheme available to the farmer who really needs help, and compare it with the number employed under the same scheme, say three years ago. If you do so, you will, I think, find a clear expression of the farmers’ appreciation of that form of Government “relief.” If at the' same time you would compare, and publish, the total amount expended under the 4A scheme and the No. 10 building subsidy relief, the Government’s love of the farmer will be better appreciated.—l am, etc.. W. D. Mason. Middlemarch, July 21.