BANKER'S STATEMENT!

Waipa Post, Volume 43, Issue 3392, 24 December 1931, Page 4

BANKER'S STATEMENT!

" FARMERS NEED A LESSON."

FARMERS' UNION SEEKS LIGHT.

A request for light on a statement quoted throughout the Dominion by various candidates for Parliament during the recent election campaign was made by the Pelorus Provincial Executive of the Farmers' Union at its meeting at Havelock on Saturday. The executive resolved that the Dominion Executive of the Farmers' Union be requested to ascertain from the Government whether it is correct, as stated by candidates for Parliament, that in his evidence before the Special Economy Committee, the general manager of the Bank of New Zealand stated: "Farmers ... a jolly good thing if some do come to grief. The more severe the lesson now the better for the country in future." Further, proceeded the resolution, if this statement was made, does the Government approve of this attitude by the head of a bank in which a large amount of public money is invested, and will it request the general manager of the Bank of New Zealand to explain in which way farmers are to blame for the changed purchasing power of money?

Mr A. N. Field (Rai Valley Union) •in moving the resolution, said the statement alleged to have been made by the general manager of the Bank of New Zealand was partly State owned and did the Government banking, it was desirable to ascertain how t'ar the views of its general manager and the Government coincided as to she treatment to be given farmers during the slump. Mr Field said he had perused a document purporting to be a precis of the proceedings of the Special Economy Committee and allegedly drawn up by the official secretariat. In this were extracts from the evidence of nineteen witnesses, etc., favouring a compulsory reduction in interest. The proposal apparently was a 2 per cent reduction m public and private interest contacts.

Then, under the heading "Against a Cut," came fourteen selections from the evidence on the other side. The first of these was that which had been so freely quoted. , This passage had thus apparently been selected by the official secretariat of the Government Committee as summarising the attitude of the executive head of the Bank of New Zealand on the matter. The statement was twice repeated by the secretariat. It was quoted in their summary of this part of the subject, and again in their extracts from the evidence. From enquiries made by him Mr Field said he had every reason to believe that the document was what it purported to be.

It was difficult to see on what ground a banker should hold that farmers needed to be taught a lesson. The slump was not due to any failure by farmers to produce. The world was not suffering from a shortage of production. Wnat was missing was the necessary medium to enable products to be exchanged in a normal way. The money system run by the banks had broken down, and was smashing up commerce and industry. Yet here they had a banker allegedly assei'ting in face of this that farmers must be taught a lesson, and that the more severe lesson the better.

After general discussion, the resolution asking for enlightenment on the matter was carried unanimously.