EFFECTS OF LOW PRICES.

Taranaki Daily News, 10 December 1931, Page 13

EFFECTS OF LOW PRICES.

(To th® Editor.) Sir, —I noticed in your paper that it was remarked that stock were fetching the lowest price for many years in the Auckland district. Well, an old neighbour and myself were at a South Taranaki sale last week. We have both attended eales for 50 years and we both agreed that it was 40 years since we had seen anything so low, cattle, sheep and pigs, fat and store alike. Fat lambs at to-day’s prices, 321 b. prime weight at sd, are -worth 13s 4d; overweights and under, about 10s 8d; fat ewes, works price, 7s; prime wethers, 10s to Ils; heavy -prime bullocks, 7jcwt. £3 10s; fat cows weighing say scwt, £4 to £4 10s; fat pigs, 3£d; advance payment on butterfat, 0d; wool (take last week’s prices for crossbred), to 6d. ’But though beef and mubtpn on hoof are so low, butchers are up against it in that hides, skins and tallow are all so low and overhead charges are still the same. As far as farmers are concerned, instead of a 10 per cent, cut in their returns, an all-round reduction of 33 per cent, is well below what it is, and it certainly looks as if Mr. Wilkinson is right when he says that before next winter it will not be 48,000 unemployed but 80,000, and they must be fed. Nothing is more dangerous to a country, than men short of food or idle. The old saying holds good still: “The devil finds work for idle hands to do.” Of course what it really means is that in towns men arc in the streets and they see luxury and amusements going on and themselves hungry, can it 'be wondered if trouble starts? It must be said to the credit of the working men of New Zealand that as a rule there has been very little trouble, but the nettle piust be grasped with a strong hand or it is going to sting. The Government has been returned with a strong mandate; let it get to work and when the House meets take hold with a strong hand. On this coast alone' there are many thousands of acres which could be taken over by the Government. In most cases land-holders would be only tdo glad to sell. It is no earthly good putting people on small holdings in back country. To handle that class of land needs a lot of experience, but on good land there are lots of men who would do all right, and 'that would leave room for another class of workers in towns, for it must be remembered that all good workers are not farmers and also that for every two families put on good land there can be one extra in towns; that is about how it works out. But the time has come to do and not waste time in talk, as in any case unless things are pushed ahead another season will be lost. A great many lenders on land and landlords have reduced without any trouble, but there are others 'Wiho, while quite able, are doing nothing, which mean# in their case a general reduction of prices, they are really better off. If it applies to land it should also apply to shops, as a lot of those rents in towns mean that prices cannot 'be reduced to consumers.—-I am, etc., OLD FARMER, Manaia, December 8, 1931.