AGRICULTURAL PROBLEMS.

Southland Times, Issue 20012, 28 October 1926, Page 11

AGRICULTURAL PROBLEMS.

To the Editor. Sir, —On Labour Day. the weather being on its best behaviour, I worked most vigorously about the land. I knew that those who live in towns and cities, being liberated from duties in shop, office and warehouse would be seeking enjoyment according to their tastes and opportunities. I, too, found enjoyment in my own way, untinged by any feeling of envy of others who would be found by sea aod river.

climbing mountains or motoring along the country roads. While I was having a spell I read my morning Times and being interested in land problems I came across the report of an address at Dipton by the member for Wallace, Mr Adam Hamilton. I mused, feeling sure as I read on that a politician who had had some experience in farming, storekeeping and general country life, would have something to say both helpful and illuminating. I must acknowledge, sir, that I was more than disappointed. It is in order to obtain more light on farmers’ problems that I venture to address this letter to your readers and incidentally hoping that the member, Mr Hamilton, may help also in this directiqn. The reported address says that by comparison the farmers in New Zealand have been hit the hardest, although they have had a good innings two years ago, good prices were obtained for farm produce. It appears to me mdst singular that in spite of these comparative good returns the mortgage on the land has been steadily increasing all the time. Consult the Year Books from 1920 to 1925 in that period (and not in the last year) there has been a steady increase of mortgage debt nearly double the total amount in the five years. It follows then that if there be reduced prices of wool, meat and butter to-day there are doubly increased payments in mortgage and interest. Agricultural banks were mentioned by the member for Wallace whose eyes seemed to be on the 26 millions that are said to be lying idle at the associated banks and the corresponding loss of • a million a year in interest. Now is it likely that the creation of a farmers’ mortgage and deposit bank would tempt this money from where it is—available on call? Optimism would run away with one’s reason to expect such an impracticability to take place. I know that a considerable amount of this idle money is deposited there by bushmen and contractors living in the backblocks whose payments for work done are made to the credit of these depositors at the respective banks until required.

Dr. Fisher, professor of economics, Otago University, speaking in Mataura a few weeks ago on agricultural banking intimated that a demand for credit pushed forward by farmers just now may be due to a desire to wriggle out of the consequences of buying land at too high a value. Perhaps there is some truth in this aspect that the member for Wallace may have considered! The chief point reported and apparently emphasised by the speaker was the payment of wages as being sadly too high, causing embarrassment to the farmer and unemployment in the country. Of course, this assertion is not an original one. I hear it daily among my farmer friends. And in trying to cultivate my own small area of land, I have often wondered how much truth there was in the accusation. —Whether wages were too high and could not reasonably be met; or was labour now inefficient as compared with an older generation? 1 wish to assure your readers, sir, that I am simply impelled with a desire to find out the truth. lam not a politician and have no leanings that way. But I know that all men love the truth when they find it. And, I believe it is one’s duty to reveal the facts to both friend and critic. It is certainly better that the wageworker in town and country alike, as well as the farmer and employer both should be disillusioned by the truth. My old school master used to tell me —the truth only will prevail. Now let us look at the evidence. The functions of an Arbitration Court presided over by a Judge of the Supreme Court and supported in a judicial capacity with a representative of the employers and the workers. Before an award is filed all the evidence is carefully gathered in order to find out what are the actual costs in a Court district for a man to maintain himself and two children at his calling in food, shelter and clothing. The award rate now prevailing is less than four pounds a week. One chief item of expenditure in a family budget is rent. I stand open to correction. And I find that neither in town nor country can a man reasonably hope to secure a house suitable to raise his family on less than 25/- a week. With this payment in view before food and clothing can be considered, I am amazed at the audacity of responsible men stating that high wages are a prime cause of farmers’ troubles and unemployment. I have just been talking with a neighbour who occupies an adjoining farm and who occasionally does work by the day. I asked him the following: “Seeing that you are going out to work just now, do you think that the wage you receive for your day’s work is a handicap on the industry and consequently should be reduced to a more reasonable thing?” He said to me, “If my wages were reduced in any way, I would not go out to work at all for wages.” I have just been speaking to another labourer who goes away early on Monday morning on his hack and returns home about once a fortnight for a Sunday to sj>end with his family. He tells me that when the interest is met on his home and ten acre section and the accounts due to the storekeeper, there is nothing left over as a provision for his later years. I have been for many years keenly interested in the work of Friendly Societies. I think it is-not boasting when I say that the membership of these institutions is composed of best citizens in the country. I have found that the wage-worker has not received in the form of wages enough to make adequate provision for himself and his family for sickness, old age and death. How few are the meetings of any lodge when there are no appeals for a sick brother in addition to the usual scale of sick benefits! Then there is the old-age pension and the old peoples’ home. If the wage is too big why the necessity of these institutions and public charity? He would be a humorist if the situation were not so tragic to affirm that all pensioners and those who have recourse to the “home” in their latter days have been “louts,” “weary willies” and “spendthrifts.” My reasoning from the fact of the wage and the payments which cannot be evaded; the evidence from experience and the .facts of life, supported also by witnesses, all convince me that wages as fixed by an award of the Arbitration Court cannot be held accountable for agricultural depression, nor the cause of unemployment. We are thus compelled by the logic of reason to look in other directions for causes of known troubles. I feel sure that farmers do not want provided for them statements which will not stand investigation. The truth will be found serviceable both to employer and worker alike. Again, I say that I am not a politician and do not envy them their post, but I do want to be fair to friend and to foe. If the Arbitration Court is to go, as Mr Hamilton avers, I would like to know what is proposed to take its place as a means of stabilising wages, or redressing grievances, and of preventing open strife? I am, etc., SOUTHERNER.