BANKS AND FARMERS

Hokitika Guardian, 4 February 1930, Page 3

BANKS AND FARMERS

RISE OF INTEREST,

(By Telegraph—Press Association)

NEW PLYMOUTH, Feb. 3

“it is an unfortunate time for the banks to raise the overdraft rate when the farmers are requiring all the finance that they can get in order to hold their wool,” said Mr Poison, M.P. The curtailment of imports was, ho said, important, but careful discrimination on the part of the banks might have effected that curtailment without penalising the farming community. Under the circumstances, the Government might assist greatly by supporting the bonds of the Rural Intermediate, Credits Board, to enable it to lend against wool, as it did against wheat. That was not a question of wool control, which was highly controversial, but merely a matte,r of ordinary finance. “Any essential commodity which is fifty per cent below the cost of production, must recover in price to some extent, at all' events,” said Mr Poison. Advances at the present brokers’ values at 6J- per c-ent, up to £2ooo—the Rural Intermediate Credits Board’s limit—could safely be made against wool in approved stores in order to give the market a chance to rally f , and would be of material benefit to the farming community'. The question was of sufficient national importance, Air Poison thought, to warrant the Government taking action.

Hon. G. AY. ,Forbes, in reply to a telegram from. Air Poison, had expressed the opinion that such a proposal should come from the farming organisations with some degree of unanimity', before the Government considered it.

“The proposal is. one to which the producers might give consideration,” continued Air Poison. “Tho necessary machinery already existsl”