INDEBTEDNESS OF FARMERS.

Putaruru Press, Volume IV, Issue 127, 8 April 1926, Page 6

INDEBTEDNESS OF FARMERS.

ARE BANKS DEALING FAIRLY ? Comments by Hon. W. Pemfoer ! Reeves. ! j Addressing a luncheon gathering al ■ Wellington, the Hon. W T . P. Reeves emphasised that New Zealand had to , export, therefore she must increase her production. He had travelled over 4000 miles in New Zealand during tne , last few months, and his impression j was that so far as the country itself t was concerned it was capable of very much-increased production. The soil and the climate were such that a much greater use might be made of them, and he was impressed with the capability for further development and increased production. There were two things which were likely to prove obstacles. One was j the heavy indebtedness of the proj ducers, and the other was the land j not being subdivided as it should be. He asked: What is the remedy? All sorts of suggestions had been made. One was that the banks had not treated the farmers liberally enough; but could'the banks remedy the position if they tried? He had gone carefully into the matter, and the result of his calculations had been to show that the indebtedness of the rural producers to the banks was onl> one-tenth to j one-eleventh of their whole indebted- ! ness; so that the farmers, graziers, I and market gardeners owed ten times as much to outsiders as they owed, to the banks. No action taken by the banks would vitally affect the position. He had seen farm after farm where the trouble was that the farmer had too much | land, and was not able to employ labour where it could be utilised proI fitably, so that his property was standI ing still or actually going back. The I Government had tried to do what it 1 could, and had lent farmers an enormous amount of money at a low rate of interest, as well as instituting the moratorium; but the difficulty still existed. Noxious weeds were getting a hold, and were becoming a danger to the country, how great only ,those who had been through the islands could underI stand. He noticed the other day that the Minister of Lands had suggested 1 that the remedy was .a sane and gradual subdivision of the land. He himself believed this could be done without settling the land with a poor and miserable peasantry. He thought they could double the number of cultivators. He saw no other way of gradually increasing the production of New Zealand-