BELOW FIVEPENCE

Hokitika Guardian, 2 January 1931, Page 2

BELOW FIVEPENCE

WOOL IN SEDDON’S DAY.

“In 1903 our wool was selling in London as low as 4cl, frozen meat at 2gd, tallow at £l7 10s, and other pro-

ducts at correspondingly low prices. Fat wethers in New Zealand were commanding, off shears, 9s but then we were in a better position to face those low prices than we are to-day, for we had cheap land, low wages, high efficiency, and less extravagance in public and private life.”

In these words Sir Harold Beauchamp, in an interview in the- New Zealand Magazine, recalls a trade malady of the past, in years when the patient had a higher resistance power. He thinks that the post-war moratorium helped to unfit the rural industries to meet changing fortunes, for it enabled farmers, instead of meeting their liabilities, to incur heavy ones by purchasing land, the prices for which were based upon the peak values then ruling for our produce.

A 50 Per Cent Written-off. “Another mistake was, \ think, made by the Government in yielding to popular clamour to put returned soldiers, without experience, on land purchased by the Government at inflated values. These men without, as I say, experience, acquired land at abnormally high figures which meant failure, and, in course of time, one after another crashed. Speaking from memory, I should reckon the Government found something in the vicinity of £28,000,000 for settlement and equipment of soldiers, and if the scheme were wound up to-day I imagine at least one-half that sum could be written off ns bad. “Cheap money and liberal facilities afforded by the Advances to Settlers Department, other branches of the public service, banks, various financial institutions, and private lenders, were chiefly responsible for inflating land values. Tn some cases dairy lands sold, as high as £l4O per acre, and country estimated to carry two sheep to the acre frequently changed hands at £3O per acre. With the abnormal prices then and subsequently ruling of wool, sheep, lambs, wheat, and every description of primary produce, together with the lavish expenditure on the part of the Government and public bodies, everything went merrily as a marriage bell until this Dominion, in common with the rest of the world, was faced with the disastrous fall in values of all commodities, which lias brought us hack to the position, in regard to land values, we occupied in the eighties of the last- century. And, at the moment, it is impossible to discern any signs of an early recovery in values, and a return to prosperity.

Must Regain a Competitive Level,

It would, therefore, bo prudent,,<lo take stops to put our house in order. This, I think, could be achieved by tne drastic cutting down of public and'private expenditure, and a substantialreduction in cost, of production. It is only in respect to the latter that’we can expect to compete with other countries where different conditions obtain. To achieve this object there must be equality of sacrifice. “It is, I maintain, useless to say that the standard of living shall not be reduced. The present standard cannot be maintained if the income derivable from the sale of our produce be cut down by, say, 50 per cent., as it is compared with prices ruling a year or so ago. How can a man, out of employment, expect to have the same comforts as he enjoyed when he was earning £6 or £7 a week? The curtailing of his spending power is already reflected in the earnings of all classes of the community—-business, professional men, and others, all of whom must adjust their living expenses to the altered conditions, It may be pointed out, when the cost of living for some years was steadily mounting upwards, wages advanced in conformity therewith. It is, therefore, only logical that with the drop in the value of commodities, wages should follow in the same ratio.

“Consider, too, the amount we are spending on education—£4,so9,ooo per annum, or, say, slightly over £3 per head in a country with a population, of less than 1,500,000 souls. I hold that when a lad is educated up to the sixth or seventh standard in the primary school he should not be able to pass on to the secondary schools until be succeeds in passing a fairly stiff educational test. Under the present system, he proceeds to the secondary school by means of a free\ place. Once he reaches that goal his chief aim is to qualify for some genteel form of employment, instead - of going nut into the world and learning a useful trade, from which he could earn a livelihood in any part of the world.”