DENMARK’S SYSTEM

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 551, 2 January 1929, Page 8

DENMARK’S SYSTEM

PUTTING WORKERS ON SMALL HOLDINGS STATE BUYING AND LENDING (From Our Resident Reporter.) WELLINGTON, To-day. 1 New light upon one of the Dominion’s problems, the question ' of small holdings, is shed by Mr. T. H. Arnsen, a Danish statistician, who is on a visit to the Dominion. After providing for special loans by an old Act, passed in 1899, says Mr. Arnsen, the Danish Government in 1919, passed an Act which has created the most perfect system of small holdings. yet devised in the world. Under this newer statute land may be bought only at the special land committee’s sales of public lands. This public land is acquired by the Government, with compensation, from large estates, glebe land, and land specially acquired by the Ministry of Agriculture in places where no other land is available. No purchase money is paid by the smallholder when he takes over his land, but he pays an annual sum based upon periodic valuation of the land by a property valuation committee, the valuation being fixed at such an amount as a sound purchaser might be expected to pay if the land were part of a farm of average size. The annual payment is made in half-yearly increments and recently stood at 4$ per cent. To enable buildings to be erected upon the land the Government has arranged for the granting of a loan of up to nine-tenths of the cost, but not exceeding a maximum fixed annually by the Ministry of Agriculture, interest being at the rate of 4i per cent, upon loans which reach the statutory maximum. This interest is upon the first 8,000 kroner, the rest Is free of interest. If the loan does not reach the statutory limit there is a proportionate reduction of the amount upon which interest is paid. The smallholder must have available the necessary one-tenth of the money needed for buildings and the purchase of stock and plant. The effect of the Act may be gauged by the fact that whereas from 1900 to 1905 there were 1,859 new small-hold-ings taken up, the one year 1922-23 saw 964 new small-holdings entered upon, more than double the total of the previous year. Reinforcing the Government action is the co-operative movement and the small-holders’ associations. Co-opera-tion has proved absolutely indispensible and without the small-holding movement could never have grown to its present size. From the first, the co-operative movement received the support of agriculturists and was seen to possess special importance for small-holders. In the latter half of last century the character of Danish agriculture changed from corn to butter, bacon and eggs and made it possible for small-holdings to be worked more intensively and the owners to obtain a better return, through co-operation. In addition there are special smallholders’ organisations, over 1,200 of these being in existence last year. The membership of these societies was close on 90,000. Features of the Government, loan system are that applicants are required to show- that they possess a margin of working capital sufficient to operate the small-holdings, that they have to prove that their means are not sufficient to enable them to obtain a smallholding without State support. Preference is given to applicants who can prove that they have saved the necessary sum out of their wages.