READJUSTMENT OF MORTGAGES

Southland Times, Issue 23332, 16 October 1937, Page 3

READJUSTMENT OF MORTGAGES

To The Editor

Sir, —I saw a letter some short time ago in your paper signed by “Been Through It All.” In my opinion your correspondent has not been through as much as some of our good old people. I refer to those who struggled away on their land for years and then went off to enjoy a well-earned rest, leaving a fair amount of money on these farms as second mortgage, but having quite enough to live on. They were hit by the world depression and in many cases could not get their interest, but they struggled through that without the help of the Government. As “Investor” said in his letter of today, interests on mortgages were cut down before the Labour Government took office and this cut helped the mortgagor considerably. With the rise in prices ht should have been able to meet his liabilities. If he could not, why should the present Government come along and cut his mortgage down or eliminate it altogether, leaving incompetent farmers where they are to muddle on, and poor mortgagees to suffer mpre hardships than they did even in carving out a home on unimproved land “Been Through It All” says that they have the pension or that even if the worst comes, they could go on the dole. All I wish is that this correspondent should himself have to face the hardships of the dole or sustenance, and he would realize what he is talking about. The men are only paid according to the family they have, the highest pay being £3 3/-. Your correspondent should try paying rent out of this and living at the high cost our Government has forced on to us. A man can earn a few miserly shillings besides his dole—when he can get them—and his wife has to work from daylight till midnight because it is not possible to pay for help. I am glad to see that someone under the name of “Investor” has taken this matter up. What he says is sound common sense, and I think he is right as far as investments are concerned. Any one investing money today in property or anything else, will be finding himself on the rocks—which is just where some of the second mortgagees are finding themselves at the present moment. I think that “Been Through It All” will have to go through a little more than he has in the past if he helps to put the Government back next election.—Yours, etc., SUFFERER. October 13, 1937. To The Editor Sir, —Please allow me to write a few lines in reply to “Investor’s” letter which appeared in your issue of October 13. Firstly, he appears to be dealing only with one aspect of the mortgage question. To refer to his side of the question about the first mortgage, where a first mortgage was reduced 30 per cent, enabling the mortgagor to sell and collect £lOOO, is bringing speculation into our argument and has nothing to do with second mortgages to which I confine my ■’•emarks. Thousands of these second mortgages were taken on through absolute necessity, before it was evident that a world depression was near at hand. So acute has the position become through excessive taxation that something drastic will have to be done to keep good farmers on their lands instead of trying out others, as “Investor” suggests. All thinking people must admit that there is an element of hardship to many investors, but what cannot be cured must be endured, and if the £5O horse turned out to be an outlaw the buyer might have to sell him for £25. The inefficiency of many men on the land is caused by heavy mortgages, whether they are first or second, and very often it is a case of fools making beautiful farms on borrowed money, to be owned later by speculators or men of capital. We have thousands of intelligent farmers looked upon as duds, and second mortgages and high taxation are the causes of the trouble. I conclude from his letter that “Investor” is no farmer, especially when he says he has been informed that the stock and plant on one place were of more value than the farm. This will probably be a manuka scrub farm on Pebbly Hills. The stock is probably rabbits, and mattock and traps the eieempeleeeee ta mattock and traps the implements. Such information as “Investor” gives reveals a lack of farm knowledge. In conclusion I suggest that good farmers should be kept on the land and relieved of the impossible position in which many of them find themselves through no fault of their own.—Yours, BEEN THROUGH IT ALL. October 14. 1937.