LOST EQUITY

Evening Star, Issue 22445, 16 September 1936, Page 6

LOST EQUITY

MR COATES'S CHALLENGE TO MORTGAGE BILL A FORCEFUL RETORT [From Our Parliamentary Reporter.] AVELLINGTON, September 15. That the new legislation for the relief of lessees and mortgagors is. no improvement on the Statute it replaces was the main contention of Mr Coates in discussing the Government’s measure in the House to-night. _ The principle in the original Act, said Mr Coates, was that a farmer would retain 20 per cent, of his equity in the land, and this instruction was given by Cabinet to the State-lending departments which made advances to farmers. He challenged the Government to show where this existed in the new Bill, for the equity provision had been deliberately taken away. ,

The Prime Minister: Where was the 20 per cent, equity? Mr Coates: All State mortgagors had the right to apply for it, and when it went .to the adjustment commissions or the court this was allowed. He suggested that the Minister of Finance, forgetting the Prime Minister’s electioneering promises, had let him down and had let down the farmer in particular, while the guaranteed price, which was to be part of the readjustment, applied only to one section. Mr Lee Martin (Minister of Agriculture) : For the moment! Mr Coates concluded by declaring that it was the Government’s clear intention to collar all the equity in land, and what was the farmer getting? he asked. He was in the position of having no prospect but .what was called a reasonable standard of comfort, but he predicted that when the farmer woke up he would see that he owned his own property. Mr Barclay replied that Mr Coates had spoken of the efficient farmer losing his equity by having it taken away from him. He thought, however, that the Bill would give the opportunity to the efficient farmer to get the benefit

of his efficiency. Once,prices and mortgages were stabilised an increase in the carrying capacity of the farm would go to the farmer. Mr Coates had said that the present price of butter was above the guaranteed price, and he had challenged anyone to deny that, Mr Barclay con* tinned. He would take up that challenge, and say that the present price of butter in London, 109 s to 110 - a cwt, was almost exactly what the farmers were being paid under the guaranteed price, and the price was going down. It was not a fair thing to vatu# the season’s output at the price obtained at the present time of the year, as the price always had a tendency to fall. . Mr Roberts ; They don’t know that, Mr Barclay: The member for Stratford knows, and he is eloquent in his silence on the Bill. I congratulate him on his silence.