Farmer Needs At Least £14,500 Capital If He Is To Retire

Wanganui Chronicle, 27 November 1948, Page 6

Farmer Needs At Least £14,500 Capital If He Is To Retire

“The stark position today Is that unless a farmer can retire with more than £14,500 capital at the end of his working life, he is not one whit better off in income than the neer-do-well and the drunkard and the loafer who draw the age benefits,” said Mr. R- O. Montgomerie (Kakatahi) in evidence before the Royal Commission on the Sheep Industry yesterday. How many farmers in New Zealand today would finish their lives with more than this basic £14,500? asked Mr. Montgomerie. “Would they comprise more than 30 per cent, of pur farmers?” he asked. “There is reason to doubt that it would be anywhere near 30 per cent. There is little more than a primeval love of the land with which to reward those who bear the heat and burden of maintaining farm production. “We prefer to confuse the real issues by ascribing the plight of agriculture to some undefined weakness and to even inherent weakness in the present private enterprise system, whereas it can in truth be ascribed to the greater opportunities that have lain at the hand of the rest of the community to gain their advantages at the expense of agriculture and to the inevitable disruption of the existing order resalting from two world wars in 25 years.”