VOICE OF THE PEOPLE

Taranaki Daily News, 5 March 1935, Page 9

VOICE OF THE PEOPLE

VIEWS ON CURRENT TOPICS

STOCK TRAVELLING ON ROADS.

NEED FOR PROVIDING' WATER.

(To the Editor.)

Sir.—While travelling from Awatuna to Stratford recently during the dry weather I passed two large mobs of cattle, mostly cull cows, I presume, oh their long journey to the Waitara freezing works. These poor brutes were travelling along a dusty road, many having their tongues hanging out of their mouths, no doubt gasping for . Water. They were presumably stock which had been purchased on behalf of the works at various sales, and no doubt dumped into accommodation paddocks there to remain until there was a sufficient number to drive to the works.

It is doubtful whether any accommodation paddock contained water during the dry spell, and one does not know how long stock remained in those paddocks before starting on their long, thirsty journey. I consider it up to the various county councils to provide watering places for stock drivers along the various stock routes, as there are many running streams crossing most roads in the Taranaki district. It is merely a question of making approaches to suitable streams at, I am sure, a small cost, which would be a blessing to thousands of dumb animals. Even though they should be only “cull cows” and of little value, at the same time they have helped materially in paying the rates. la the Wanganui district the position is different (thanks to the Farmers’ Union). Stock are provided with watering places. Why not in Taranaki?—l am, etc.,

F. A. HARKNESS;

STATE ADVANCES.

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—l claim to know something about State Advances, entering my first farm in this country, as I did on May 1, 1888. Not that I ever got a shilling out of the State Advances, even in hard old times, having a, rooted objection to the State coming into my business. These advances began over 40 years ago. The apostles of the new policy Were all out of the South Island. They ushered it in with the usual claptrap about “the bloomin’ capitalists.” For 30 years, and more, State Advances did a rattling business, the price of farmers’ produce ever rising, also that of his implement, land, due in lip small degree to cheap and easy money. Then came depression and falling prices. With these wgs no corresponding drop in the mortgaged value of land. The farmer’s equity in his land vanished as mist in a drought, and he found himself in sore and sudden financial straits. At first touch of adverse circumstance, State Advances had failed the farmer, as I knew it would. As of old, he was faced- by Shylock, now in State apparel and holding £60,000,000 worth of rural mortgages, or thereabout, a far more appalling figure than the old-time private investor, possibly in shabby slops and himself hard hit. So came into being the Mortgagors’ Relief Act, putting the farmer’s mortgage into cold storage and freezing the State Advances asset. No doubt “our collective wisdom” duly pleaded their Plato’s' authority, “One revolution only breeds another revolution.”

In my last Tuesday’s letter I asked for a frank statement by the Finance Minister of. the financial condition of the State Advances Office. Somehow, this slipped out of print. This being so, I am going to state the truth as I see it now. If 50 per cent, of us farmers are bankrupt, as Mr. Smith told you, then the Advances Office is also bankrupt. Working upon borrowed money, . its assets frozen under the Mortgagors’ Relief, how can it be otherwise? Holding four-fifths of the rural mortgages, can it, dare it, foreclose for non-pay-ment of interest?. There is nothing left it but to face the facts, file its schedule and leave the rest to the Official Assignee. That officer will declare what dividend the estate can pay, thus giving a much bedeviled taxpayer some notion of his final liability. Then discharge may come, and, let us hope, a long goodnight to State Advances. As. regards this new Corporation Bill, Labour declares it to be a reversal of the purpose of the State Advances Act. It is worse than that. Last year,, in the case of certain company promoters the Victorian State Attorney declared his readiness to prosecute. New South Wales set up a Royal Commission to inquire into the methods of these same promoters. Our own Parliament is now busy with a Bill dealing with such promotion. Clearly, this is a case of legislation against the.mote in the other fellow’s eye while promoting a beam. in your own.

This is the method. You promote a company and hawk bonds about among the people. When this company gets into trouble and its assets seem endangered, you promote a second company under a pew name and issue more bonds, keeping a majority of the old directors on the new board, taking over the assets of the first company, and so on and so •in. Is not this the method of the Mortgage Corporation Bill? A difference is that the private promoters dealt with £500,000 of' private assets, while our Mortgage Corporation deals with £60,000,000 worth of public assets. Then, there’s the dual control. The Finance Minister says he has looked into all such cases and can find no objection to it. He is a returned soldier. Has he so soon forgotten .what dual control by French and Joffre, and later by Haig and Foch, cost the Allies? And how differently went the war once Foch had supreme command. This Parliamentary fuss and babble, amending and dividing, are mere ploughing the sand and beating the air. Bankrupt farmers require instant relief. So do distressed mortgagees, not Shylocks, but retired and aged farmers with life savings still on the land. Moreover, the price of land cannot fall until it is relieved .of its weight of mortgage. ; To achieve that result, I tell Ministers, were it even desirable, you cannot raise an internal loan of £60,000,000 bybond issues, these same bonds to be traded for State Advances assets at face value, the traffic managed by eight directors with only a million of,their own in the Corporation. Sooner or later the taxpayer will have to pay: the' difference between that face value and .the market value of the assets. Why" nbt'write them down at once, on some such plan as that proposed in my last letter. Thus hope would be restored to the farmer. Confidence could then be given to, investors by the repeal of the Mortgagors’ Relief Act. But, stay—is the Bill you have up your sleeves that same relief Would you dragoon the cockies into the meshes of your precious Corporation Act? En bien, Messieurs, apres yous le deluge!—l am, etc.; R. J. BAKEWELL. Waitui, March 2.