AGRICULTURAL BANK.

Hokitika Guardian, 18 December 1924, Page 4

AGRICULTURAL BANK.

(To the Editor) Sir, —I have been awaiting anxiously for .Mr IV. J. Poison’s reply to the statments .made by the Hon. J. G. Coates a week or two ago in regard to the hanking scheme the Dominion President of the Farmers’ Union has

been advocating strenuously since be took the primary producers of this country under his benevolent wing; but so far I have found in the newspapers no attempt to controvert the plain assertions of the .Minister of Railways. -Mr Contes is not an authority to he ignored. He enjoys a reputation lor robust eom.moii-sen.se, business acumen and breezy candour which makes him a person of very considerable importance in the Dominion, apart altogether from the high office he holds in the service of the State, and if .Mr Poison could convince him that the adoption of his scheme by the (lovcrinnent would hi* a good thing for the farmers, and for the rest of the community, then the battle for an agricultural hank would he Jimre than half won. Let me epitomize briefly whlit the .Minister said when addressing a gathering cf farmers in one 01. the rural districts of Auckland during his recent tour of the northern province. Money for development purposes at a reasonable rate of interest, he declared, was the chief need of the settlers at the j,resent time. But it was no use toying with schemes such as the proposed larmers hank unless there was a reasonaide chance of their making cheaper money available. He could see no prospect of auv of the schemes that had been propounded doing that. 110 would be for u farmers’ bank if lie could see how such an institution would succeed ; but the farmers could not expect the rest of the community to guarantee a scheme to lend money cheaply, or lor nothing at all. and so assume an unlimited liability. That would he giving to one class what could not be given to another. Tho Prime Minister was ready to find it], to Clot),000, tree ol interest for ten years; but lie could not mortgage the country for twenty or twenty-live millions. In any ease the scheme held out no hope of providing money at as low a rate id interest as the Sate Advances Department already was doing. That was the substance oT the Minister’s weighty words. Air Coates is the Prime Minister’s loyal colleague and in keeping with the rules of the political game lie condones bis chief’s preferred 121.*>0,0(10 free of interest, loan without even a grimace; hut he obviously sees as every other business mail does, that it is not .instilled by any ease Air Poison or anyone else lias made out on belialt ol the agricultural bank proposal. It is true that the Prime .Minister has hedged around his concession to the farmers with all sorts of precautions that might save the State from any loss beyond the sacrifice of some £70,000 or £BO,OOO in the way e.f interest, a sum those taxpayers who were not tanners would have to pay. But that is not the all : important point at issue. II it is right ; to subsidise the farmers in this fashion

then it is right to subsidise every other section of workers in a similar fashion. If farmers arc to he given free of interest loans and special banking facilities, why should not the followers of other industries essential to the welfare of the .State—the miners, the sawmillers, the meat freezers, the woollen millers, the fishermen, the butchers, the bakers and even the watersiders and the farm labourers—lm given similar privileges? Tim Labour Party when it comes into office, certainly will not make the invidious distinction Air Massey is proposing. ami in the meantime il. is welcoming the Prime Minister’s departure from sound economic principles as a precedent for the absolute socialisation of tile Dominion's linanco. Air Holland and bis friends have said as much. Vet the promoters of the agricultural bank scheme arc declaring that .Mr

Al.t.-ey’.. et!U’!OU • « MO* o.c : ie" to tllell* demands is utterly inadequate. It seems that their principal eoneei'ii is for the fanners requiring from £IO,OOO to C2b,()0() at a low rate of interest to help them over tho ilillieult period threatened by the termination of the moratorium. Air .Massey's £ lb(),()()(), they complain, would only be a drop ill the bucket. H would relieve oolv fif-

teen of tlie less heavily mortgaged farmers or only ten of the more heavily mortgaged. There must In: millions of pounds in the scheme if if is to bo of any substantial benefit to the men on the land and to the country. But where is all this money to ionic from? The Prime -Minister, much to his credit in Llie circumstances, is making every effort to strengthen (he State Advances Department and to extend its usefulness. What, more would it lie prudent and useful for him to do? Already he has increased the amount of loans and accepted a .smaller margin cf .security.

Apparently .Mr Poison and his friends think he could still furllier strain Hie credit of the Dominion, or at any rate place large additional burdens on the taxpayers, in order that a number of laymen should try their ’prentice hands in the profession of hanking with other

people’s money. It is not a reply to the criticism of .Hr Poison’s scheme to say that there are 'agricultural hanks, or land hanks, or co-operative hanks in Denmark or Holland or Germany or in some other country with whose institutions most of

us have no more than a superficial acquaintance. What we people who are ■not farmers want to know is liow* wo can help the men and women and children on the land to a greater extent than we are helping them now without putting our heads into a financial noose from what we never might ho able lo extricate ourselves. Our taxation per head of population already is the heaviest in the world, with the exception of the good old Mother Country, ami really wo can hear no more. I am etc., TAXPAYER. Wellington, December 10, 1921.