THE ECONOMIC FOOL.

Waikato Times, Volume 96, Issue 15033, 2 September 1922, Page 11 (Supplement)

THE ECONOMIC FOOL.

SS HE REFORMING? (By “Scribatoo.”) The farmer is a fool. That is his own opinion of himself in the world of economics. My neighbour, who is bald with many years of farming, often expresses it, and it is confirmed more or less directly every day by the utterances of farmers throughout the land. “Slick to your pen,” urged a life-long farmer hard hit by the recent slump, to a professional man who was commencing dairying as a side line with a view to ultimately making it his living and his hobby. This farmer, too, was very earnest in his precept, for he is seeing to it that not one _of his many sons are following in his footsteps in cho’osing a trade or profession. “We own the cow, the sheep, and the pig, but we have to take what they like to give for them,” complained another hoary-headed dairy farmer at the monthly meeting of his branch of the Farmers’ Union. “Yes, and they begrudge us the profit we make on our land,” responded a younger man with the modern idea, adding, "They call it the ‘unearned increment,’ but • nothing was more honestly earned by hard work, for if you totalled up the value of the farmer’s labour at labour union rates you would find that the unearned increment would not be sufficient lo cover the balance still due.” We. get 5d per lb for our pork,” said another farmer and an ex-servant of the State, “but for the time we spend in feeding anu tending the pig this does not represent 3d per hour.” Thus and in many other phrases is the farmer s opinion of himself in relation to the rest of the economic community expressed.’ Analysed, what a I’idiculous position it is for the primary producer to be in—the man who sustains the rest of humanity-feat the mercy of the rest of humanity! The Uses of Adversity.

However, in the past he has been more or less content. His life has had its attractions and its advantages in* its freedom, its independence, and its healthiness, and as long as he was making steady, though perhaps slow, progress year- by year towards the liquidating of his mortgage he was contented and satisfied. In fact, with the war boom, many long-established farmers not only quite extinguished their mortgages, etc., but made considerable profit. Some, indeed, became rich. But the primary producer’s relation to the other economic groups was basically the same. He was still getting only what the other fellow cared to - give him. These factors, .though, were really .only so much chloroform- to The farmei, and it took the hard thrust of adversity to rduse hint from his stupor to see clearly his basic position. This came, and with a suddenness that not only awoke the dreamer, hut astonished him, leaving him nonplussed for a time. It was the slump. His flocks of sheep, representing mutton and wool, and his beef cattle, all of which three elements until then had represented a small fortune, suddenly became, in effect, costly encumbrances of practically no value. This was followed by his butter-fat falling 50 per cent in value —he gets 1/3 per lb this year as against 2/6 or more last year—and the value of his honey,, fruit, etc., fell proportionately, with no compensatory redaction in the price of his requirements. ' Thus, Instead of the more or less steady progress progress of the past years, he now found, as a general rule, not only had he little or no hope of paying his way meanwhile, but that'from this fact he was in the position of a defaulter whose legal hold on his farm and his homein many cases embodying his long toil, ambition, achievement, and livelihood —was gone. His only right to it was a moral one; the legal right had reverted to the mortgages through his unavoidable default. The True Realisation.

Then it was he realised he was a .fool. The other economic ■ factors — flie manufacturer, the merchant, the middleman, the consumer,, the investor and the speculator held him in the hollow of their hand. Their interests were opposed to his except as regards first causes. Yet, nature had given him the premier position —it was he that was the primary producer. Why was this natural right no good to him, leaving him the sport of fate —or oilier interests. Ilis cogitations supplied the answer in three words: “He lacked organisation.” The other interests had efficient organisation; he had not. He realises that his factor —the. primary producers—must he by far the greatest factor numerically, in the country. Yet, he is officially informed by a farmers’ representative that when if was suggested to the Prime Minister I,fiat this great factor should not be given less than 8d per lb for bis pork as a measure of helping the primary producer against his dir.c difficulties of the slump, Mr Massey replied that any step in that direction on his part would set up a hue and cry by official labour that he wa s keeping the cost of living up—and the price paid to the farmer for his pork slumped from lid per lb to 3Jd! In effect, the interests of flic 70,000 proved dominant through organisation to those of the class numbering much more. Well, let the labour unionists take great heed that - they are not only beaten, but are also crushed at their own game, for the mightier force of tiie primary producer is being made effective through the same thorough methods of organisation as used by labour. Movements have been started which should mean that no longer is the farmer merely going to get merely what, is given him —lie is going to get his due. Already the largest dairy company has instituted a system whereby it controls the price it receives at Home and in the Dominion for its produce, and the scheme has been mooted for the uniting of all the dairy companies to do likewise in joint organisation. Already a meat pool is operating to control the disposal of our meat, and great good has been done by a British-Austraiian Wool Realisation Association in preventing absolute collapse in the wool market.

Thus arc before us three very poignant cases where I lie producers have organised to get. some measure of control as to what Iheir returns are to tie. But the signs of the times are that this is only a beginning. A great federation of all primary producers in the Dominion is mooted to control the primary industries from their source to their consumption, and events seem to be moving towards the materialisation of the scheme. What a power such a federation would tie in the land. Is it coming, or did tin; farmers’ day in tiie economic world end wilh the war-time boom? What arc the signs of the Limes’*