VOICE OF THE PEOPLE

Taranaki Daily News, 1 June 1934, Page 7

VOICE OF THE PEOPLE

VIEWS ON CURRENT TOPICS MR. POLSON AND HIS TEN POINTS. FALLACIES IN HIS ARGUMENT. (To the Editor.) Sir, —I read the report of Mr. Polson’s address to the Farmers’ Union conference with interest, but I cannot agree with the following statements made in it: (1) “Show me a country where land values were high and I will show you a prosperous country. High values mean something to pledge. That means development. Low values mean stagnation and decay. The history of New Zealand has already shown that clearly. Reduce interest and land values will not matter”; (2) “Interest in New Zealand is far too high.” Mr. Polson’s political economy places the cart before the horse. _ Prosperity, industrial and commercial activity are the causes of high land values. They precede high land values. To-day the total land value- of New Zealand is greater than it was 30 years ago. Is the prosperity of New Zealand greater? Taking periods of ten years from 1878, when the value of the land was £62,500,000, the values grew in the next periods to £75,000,000, £241,000,000 and £341,000,000, reaching their peak in 1927. In any of these periods stagnation and decay were not showing. There were low values in the back country, but progress was being made, and land values -were rising in sympathy. ' If Mr. Polson’s theory is correct, how is it that farm lands at one time returned a good living, and the farmer was progressing, the price of butterfat being 8d per lb. To-day, though producing more butterfat per acre, the farmer cannot make ends meet. Thirty or 35 years ago the price of that land ranged from £l2 to £l5 per acre, the unimproved value being about half. To-day that same land has indebtedness upon it ranging from £5O to £7O per acre, the unimproved value being somewhat- more than half. The price of butterfat-is 8d- tb 9Jd per lb. The land per acre is more productive, yet the user of that land and his family are struggling; to make ends meet No prosperity means no progress. How can Mr. Polson claim that his inverted statement is accurate? -Facte are against him. - - ■ ’ • 1 Apparently both the American farmer and the British farmer are in the same boat. The American farmer at the point of the gun dared the landbwrier to foreclose, as Mr. Polson well knows, and Mr. Elliot, Minister of Agriculture in. the British Cabinet, holds the pistol of restriction at us to enable the tenant farmer of Britain to pay his rents. Neither the British Minister nor Mr. Polson as president of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union will look in the direction of high land values for a solution of the farmers’ troubles. I have read numbers of addresses ' delivered by Mr. Polson on reduced costs to the farming and labouring portion of the community as a cure for the depression, but never have I noticed him advocating a drastic reduction in the first and most serious cost on goods—land values or economic rent; nor in any of his addresses have I noticed him eulogising the landowner either in the shape . of a bank, financial institution or money lender who owns or whose security is based on land values. In fact, no one can point to the mere ownership of land as being beneficial to the community; this is the “nigger in the woodpile” with the Farmers’ Union -that Mr. Joe B. Simpson is hunting for. The land-owning element and- the farming' element in iite "inembersHip are antagonistic. l The land-owning (section want high, land values; the farmifig-ele-ment want low. Mr. -Polson consciously or unconsciously belongs to the former, and either cannot'dr will not see the cure for the farmers’ economic, troubles. With'Mr. Polson’s statement No>. 2, “that interest is too high,”. with: your permission I will'deal in another letter. Here, again, Mr. Polson confuses political economic terms, and the result is a confusion of mind amongst his hearers.—l am, etc., DAVID L. A. ASTBURY. Mangatoki, May 30.

DOUGLASISM. j (To the Editor.) Sir,—l am in entire agreement with Mr. Mason when he says that goods are made to sell. But I join issue with him when he claims that the community should pay for what the individual buys. Under these happy trading conditions the warehouses would be emptied in short order, though filling them again would be a much more difficult matter. It must be obvious to Mr. Mason that the discount unit must circulate at par with the producer unit' Hence its cancellation without liability is an impossibility. If the customer receives goods which he does not pay for, and the manufacturer is paid, then it must be apparent' that he has been paid by the community. If Mr. Mason’s wizard account- - ancy can explain this liability I would like to learn how it'operates.—l am, etc, FRANK BELL. Midhirst, May 31.