THE HARD PRESSED

Waihi Daily Telegraph, Volume XXX, Issue 8449, 6 April 1933, Page 3

THE HARD PRESSED

PROBLEM AWAITING SOLUTION

SMALL FARMERS AND TRADERS

WILL DOUGLAS CREDIT HELP?

(Contributed by K.B. —No. 3)

We speak often about the unemployment question and the troubles it brings us—those millions of men without jobs are sort of setting on our nerves. They present a problem yet unsolved; a good many plans offer a solution— or so their promoters say—only the solution is nowhere open for inspection. But besides that we have between us a multitude of people nearly as poor as those actually out of a 30b some, perhaps, poorer. Take the starting farmers. A good many o them are milking from 10 to cows. Such a farmer is all right if he has some well-paid job or other besides his farm. A good few round Waihi are in that lucky position, but if the man is just a farmer, then the case has a far worse aspect. Say he is milking 20 cows on 80 acres, with 50 acres in grass. His house is usually poor, his cowshed might be no better, and there is a general lack of other necessary buildings and conveniences. He gave, say, £SOO for the land, he saved up money to build, he put grass in without incurring bills, and then he started milking. His cows did not do as well as he expected—they very rarely do—and he made bills for manure. Some of the cows were culls, he had to buy new ones, but he did not have quite enough money. In the winter he ran up a little bill with the storekeeper, and in October he did not have enough cash for his interest. Then he was forced to borrow money from the Rural Intermediate Credit Board. It was not a big loan, he could not get a big one, but the transaction took one quarter of his cream cheque every month.

DIMINISHING RETURNS In the meantime butter went down from Is 4d to 9d per pound. The cows can no longer pay for the manure, the interest is hard to lay hands on, and he finds himself in a position where the personal allowance for himself and family is less than what a single relief wroker is earning in a relief camp. Those starting farmers —we have them by the thousands —are as hard up as many an unemployed man. They dare not give up their farms, they are hoping for better times, and if they do give up they have only a relief worker’s lot to rely on, with seemingly no future for the children. And do not forget, please, that lots of farmers only have half their cream cheque, or even less, to use for housekeeping, clothes, benzine, oil and upkeep of the farm, implements and stock. The reader is thinking that farmers ought to go in for a side-line, but the farmer cannot afford it. Seed, implements, horses, licenses, freight, etc., are altogether too dear for a poor man, and as to vegetable gardening, remember also that a town worker has more spare time than a farmer; have a look through Waihi and see how many spare sections are in use.

SMALL TRADESMAN’S LOT And now the town. Many a small shop is in queer street. It was hard to get on in good times because tne competition with big businesses was too keen; it is almost impossible to keep the small shop going now on account of the consumers having too little purchasing power. Many consumers are on relief work; the farmers have to go very steady, and many a tradesman, once comfortably well off, is now fighting hard to keep the wolf from the door. Even the workers with steady jobs have had to accept a close to 20 per cent, cut m wages, while they are at the same time are paying the unemployment levy and extra income tax. At the same time prices have a tendency to rise, where they ought to fall. Our Government is to blame for that. Higher tariffs are set to work, one per cent, extra duty comes as a surprise now and again. The exchange makes all imports dearer. The sales tax heaps another 5 per cent. on. The benzine tax has risen to the limit. Freights go up. Spare parts cost more, whether for an old Ford car or a worn separator, etc. The shops have to ask more for the goods, or earn less, and the consumer can only buy to the extent of what money he has. All that makes it worse for the small shop or for that tradesman who has little to do, and who most likely cannot even get the money in for that little. As one tradesman told me: “I have £SOO outstanding for work, and I cannot get enough money in to pay my way.”

TOO YOUNG OR TOO OLD And what about the young people (too young to come on the relief work) and the old ones close to 60, wha are too old to get a job and too young to get an old age pension' What misery we can see around us, if our eyes are open to see it. And then we have left out of consideration the question about our Maori population, the natives also feel the bad times. Fish is down in price, kumeras are not easy to sell, land is too dear to break in for their supply of money, hay-making is difficult to get as farmers cannot pay. For the same reason the Maori bushman can sell no posts. The young Maoris could before get a job on the farm—there are no jobs now. Land rent is often lost. The Maori cannot now afford to pay the levy and there is no relief work for him. And all that because our currency question is in disorder. We can produce anything and any amount of it, The consumer wants to buy all these goods, Only money is lacking. And Major Douglas has shown us one way to correct that. Will we?