THE Hauraki Plains Gazette With which is Incorporated THE OHINEMURI GAZETTE. MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, FRIDAY. “Public Service.” WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23, 1943. LIBERTY LOAN PROGRESS

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 52, Issue 3279, 23 June 1943, Page 4

THE Hauraki Plains Gazette With which is Incorporated THE OHINEMURI GAZETTE. MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, FRIDAY. “Public Service.” WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23, 1943. LIBERTY LOAN PROGRESS

Figures from the Paeroa postal area, relative to the Third Liberty Loan indicate that the average wage-earner is not supporting the appeal as well as he might. To the loan itself some 48 subscribers have found £7240 to date. This sum is increased by £260 from 32 subscribers for War Bonds and a further £515 from National Savings Deposits. The most glaring features of all are the facts that most of the money has been invested in £lOO to £2OO lots, out of the whole district there have been only 48 subscribers to the loan altogether and of this number it is estimated that few if any come under the category of wage earners. This loan is regarded as _ the “people’s loan” and unless it is supported by the people everywhere, irrespective of the size of their subscription, it can only be met by more compulsory means, viz., taxation.

LAND VALUES From time to time, during his recent pilgrimage among the farmers, and again during his speech on the Financial Statement, the Minister of Agriculture has referred to the rise in land values. He sees in this movement—by no means general —evidence of what he alleges to be the prosperity of the farming community. “When Oppositon ‘ members alleged that the farmers were suffering hardships (he is reported to have said), they did not explain why it was that land values were increasing.” The explanation probably is not very difficult. It might be attributed with confidence to the prolonged delay of the Government —over two years —to take any steps to stabilise economic conditons and . check the inflationary trend which decreases the value and purchasing power of money. Money being plentiful—the national income has reached record figures—and investment securities difficult to locate, more and more people h ave turned their attention to the land. Many people hold the view that other values may disappear, but the land remains. The higher prices being paid in some instances for land can be attributed .to the marked limitation of other forms of investment, the cheapness of money and to exactly the same things that have caused others to invest their capital in house property in and about the cities. The position was stated succinctly by an American journal recently, when it said that if people could not buy this, or that, then they would readily pay more for what they could buy. The same demand for land has been reported in Great Britain and elsewhere and probably for exactly the same reasons as here.

Has the Minister of Agriculture ever known a time when money was plentiful and cheap, when" the unpaid portion of purchase money could be left at low rates of interest and the price of land did not rise? Can he recall a time when, with the value of currency liable to fluctuations, people did not show a preference for land investments? To regard prices being paid for land simply as evidence of the prosperity of farmers is a shortsighted view. The sort of fact that remains for the Minister to explain away, for example, is the drop of over . <£1,660,000 in the aggregate pay-out of dairy factories in the 1941-42 season. Could any section of the community suffer a loss of that kind and be regarded as showing an improved positon? The factors that tend to raise land prices are many, but just at present they do not include increased prosperity of the farmer, faced as he is with little if any fertiliser to assist pasture growth and an adverse cFmatic season to reduce production, returns practically on a pre-war level but costs at a wartime peak. The Minister has jumped to a hasty conclusion.