FARMERS’ FEDERATION SUGGESTED.

Southland Times, Issue 21288, 8 January 1931, Page 3

FARMERS’ FEDERATION SUGGESTED.

To the Editor. Sir, —Now that the bottom of the market for farm produce has fallen out, I see a great number of letters in your paper. All kinds of nostrums are advocated as a cure for the depression. I also notice that the dairymen in the North Island are appealing to the Government to help them. I think this is all wrong. We farmers are inclined to look to the Government as a kind of paternal institution to which we carry all our woes, and if we carry on the way we are going, we will eventually become a Communistic or Bolshevik State, which would not be in the interests of the farmers. The Farmers’ Union, as constituted to-day, while doing a great deal of good, cannot go far enough. As you know, sir, the farmers throughout New Zealand are hard pressed, and will be much harder pressed in the next twelve months than they are today. At no time in the history of New Zealand has it been so necessary for the farmers all to pull together. Now, sir, when the Government wants to borrow money they do so on the security of the

land; and when the mercantile houses fin-ance-the farmers they do it through the banks, principally on the security of the farmer. This is my idea of how the farmers can help themselves, namely, by forming a federation of all the farmers from the Bluff to Auckland, each province to be independent of the other so far as finance is concerned, doing its own financing through its provincial executive. The membership subscription to the federation should be 10 guineas; members’ overdraft accounts to be guaranteed by members signing a bond, jointly and severally to some bank chosen by the Dominion executive of the federation; half of the subscription paid by members to be placed in the bank as a further security for the federation; the bank, through getting the whole of the farmers’ business and security, to advance the money required by members on overdraft at not more than 6 per cent. Now, there are some 80,000 farmers in New Zealand, 60,000 of whom I presume could coine under the scheme at once. This would mean that the Federation would be depositing 300,000 the bank in the first year as security. If more money were required, it would not be unreasonable to ask the Government to lend £1,000,000 or £2,000,000 to the farmers through the bank. Now. there are some 4000 farmers in Southland alone, 75 per cent, of whom hold their land at prices. That would mean that in the first year the Southland branch of the federation would have £15,750 in the bank as security, and also £15,750 to be used, as the provincial executive may see fit. The rules of the federation could be: (1) The secretary and members of executive to be paid a salary which would enable them to devote the whole of their time in working in the interests of the farmers; (II.) all members must be financial; (III.) no member to buy farm or stock where the mortgagees force a sale, unless with the consent of the executive; (IV.) members of the executive to meet mortgagees in a round table conference to try to get the mortgages reduced where the ■ land was too dear, in order to enable these farmers to join the federation.

I think the greatest lever the federaation would have in reducing mortgages, where too much had been paid for the land, would be the fact that no member would buy farm or stock where it was forced on the market. The executive would have the right to decide what the overdraft of any individual farmer should be and to decide how much it should be reduced in any one year. The executive would work to try to get all farmers’ mortgages on the table mortgage system. The farmers, through the great benefits derived from the Federation, would find it easier to pay the 10 guineas than to pay the £1 at present. If the whole of the farmers thtoughout New Zealand became members of the federation they would be able to run this country in the interests of the farmers and for the good of the country as a whole. Hoping, sir, that you will find space to insert this in your valuable paper, and that some more able pen than mine will take up the matter.—l am, etc., PLOUGH-BOY