DWINDLING MARGIN

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 475, 3 October 1928, Page 12

DWINDLING MARGIN

FARMER STATES HIS CASE IMPARTIAL TRIBUNAL SOUGHT “I know it is an unusual proceeding for farmers to erupt into the City of Auckland, but there is no alternative. I tell you the position is a serious one, and these unconventional things must be done if our case is to be tried by the public.’' Thus, Mr. H. M. Rush worth justified his appearance before an audience of about 150 in the concert chamber of the Town Hall last evening. With Mr. F. Colbeck, he discussed “The Farmers’ Cace from the Economic Point of View.”

Mr. IT. T. Merritt, president of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce, presided, and explained that the meeting was entirely non-political in character. “As a wearer of the agricultural shoe I know where it pinches,” said Mr. Colbeck, late member of the Advisory Council of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union. Tie added that the Press and others were constantly telling the public that the farmers’ position arose out of their own stupidity; that, for a start, they had paid too much for their land. But th%t did not account for tho fact that farmers who had been on the land for 20 years were getting into difficulties. The high price of land was only a part of the trouble. After discussing the dwindling margin between the farmers’ costs and returns, and contending that, in a short time, they would not be able :o produce butter without a subsidy, the speaker dealt with the farmers’ inability to pass on their burden of taxation. Some people thought that companies paid for the company’s tax, but it was passed on in its entirety. Nor did it “sta3>- put” with the consumer. Tho labourer passed it on through the Arbitration Court, the merchant in increased charges, and the professional man in increased fees. All could pass it on save the primary producer and the few people in the country with fixed incomes. This had so raised the cost of production for farmers that the thirdclass land could not be touched and the second-class land only just paid its way. Finally, the second-class land would go the way of the third-class land. COST OF LIVING The present system of constantly raising the cost of living did no good to anybody, and protection did not protect. The farmer wanted to buy in the market in which he sold. He sold in London, and he wanted permission to buy in London without restriction. They claimed that the system would hurt no one, and do immense ultimate good to the country. Mr. McLeod had said that it was “a beautiful ideal impossible of attainment,” and it had been declared that the country could not stand the loss of revenue. However, experience in New South Wales had proved that this was not so. NOT THE SUN “We regard the matter as so serious that it is our duty to put the facts before you,” said Mr. H. M. Rushworth. “Facts,” he repeated, “that the Press refuses to publish.”

A Voice: “Not The Sun.” There was something radically wrong, he continued. The Minister of Lands had said that it was impossible under the present economic conditions to institute any progressive iand settlement policy and it had been said, also, that people trying to break in new land recently were in a worse position than they would be if they were in prison. lie had found personally that breaking in new land cost £ll an acre, after which it was worth £6. To-day there were nearly 14,000 less on the land than there were five years ago. Hundreds of thousands of acres of profitable land had been abandoned and were in second growth of fern and less than one-third of New Zealand was under cultivation. “DEPRESSION” THEORY

Various explanations had been given for the trouble, and one of the most popular was “world-wide depression.” But such a phrase was meaningless, and the world’s markets absorbed easily all New Zealand’s exported products. Over the last five years the average prices had been distinctly good. There was no world-wide depression, and New Zealand’s troubles were of her own making. It had also been said that farm values were too high. It was true that there had been a land boom during which farmers paid too much for land, but it had taken place only in certain parts of New Zealand and the people concerned had long since gone off the land. Farmers’ margins had been shrinking like a snowball in the sun. To-day the fact that a man had walked off his farm because no margin was left, excited no particular comment, so commonplace had it become. New Zealand was the dearest country in the world to live in to-day, and every necessity of life was heavily taxed. It had been said that farmers escaped taxation because they were exempt from income tax, but all could pass on the taxes on necessities save the primary producers, and people living on fixed incomes. Moreover, the producers were obliged to shoulder the burden of the tax on the community as a whole. The commodity tax was a means of taxing those who were normally below the taxation limit. IMPARTIAL TRIBUNAL “Can you help us to devise some method by which these things can be investigated by an impartial tribunal?” the speaker asked. “We will not be satisfied with anything else. A stipendiary magistrate, a professor of economics and a qualified accountant might constitute an impartial tribunal if it would be a practicable one. Mr. A. G. Lunn moved the following resolution, which was carried: “That, in the opinion of this meeting, many of the statements of the speakers are of so startling a character as to warrant a committee of investigation being set up, and this meeting recommends the Farmers’ Union to .set up such a committee to undertake such an investigation and take such further action as it thinks neces-