The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE SATURDAY, JUNE 14, 1919. THE MILK DUST MALADY.

Taihape Daily Times, 14 June 1919, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

SATURDAY, JUNE 14, 1919. THE MILK DUST MALADY.

With which its incorporated “The Taihape Post and Waimarino News.”

In his address to shareholders in the Bank of New Zealand, Yesterday: Ml‘. Harold Beauchamp, the Chairman, propounded a very pertinent question in connection with the fictitious values of land that are fallaciously being encouraged, and made general by farmers themselves. He said, that owing to the present remunerative prices of produce, due to the war and to the Imperial commandeer, farmers are buying and selling improved land at very high prices; he pointed out causes that must operate in wearing down these high prices and when the Imperial coninianfieer ended, he asked, what would be the position" of the men who had paid the high, fictitious prices for land, and had burdened themselves with heavy mortgage charges? The real value of land is determined by what any competent farmer can get out of it, but, as Mr. Beauchamp pointed out, farmers work Very much by “rule of thumb” in that they keep no reliable records of their business transactions. We venture to say that if many farmers had a proper system of bookkeeping, and a correct statement was taken therefrom of some who have bought land at the ridiculously, disastrously ‘high prices it would, surprise, if not appall them. There is a question that all farmers must expect to face, and that is whether future Gwovernments will not curb the propensities of gamblers and speculators in that by which the nation solely exists, and limit the folly of fools who are cajolecl into believing land values are, what they are not, because a few decoy, ‘dummy sales have been made. It should be evident to the ‘biggest fool and the most simple-minded that if land, from twhencc all means of life come, is iforeed up to absurdly high values, leverything taken off the land and out tof the land must of necessity go up rim sympathy, and that, therefore, everything connected with land will {correspondingly go up in price till all ;desparities in prices, or values, are ;removed; what will be the position of the man with the heavy mortgage and the burden of heavy taxation then‘? IThe cost not his land is twice what it should have been; his mortgage, taxa‘tion, wages, interest, marketing costs, cows, sheep, farming implements, horses, all have doubled as a result of his first folly, and he .will have aroused the masses of the people to clamour for the suppression of all fools, gamblers and speculators that are responsible for the national calamity that must result_ The shallowness and absence of thought in combination With the craft and cunning of gamblers and speculators is calculated to bring serious breakdown of our land policy, by furnishing overwhelming evidence in favour of land-n'ation-alisation. ‘ It seems incredible that men, credited with average intelligence should expect to "fict a price equalling five-shillings a ‘pound for their butterfat while all other conditions of production, labour and living remain as they are It is it common occurrence to hear these butter-fat imbeciles building upon labour being kept down, and necessaries of life and production being regulated by the Board of Trade while they get five shililngs a pound for t-butter-fat, perhaps more. The picture these misguided men paint invokes pity, for there must surely be a suspicion somewhere that the Eldorado may not turn out just as they would like it. The undeniable indications: are that Wool is going to be the most profitable of this country's products in the first few years of the future, notwithstanding the fact that some interested persons are industriously circulating stories of skimmed milk dust selling at fabulous prices. No one would give a. second thought to what insane land-mongers are doing were it not for the fact that the Whole superstructure of national life rests upon primary production; if it falls to pieces_. or is convulsed, dofin comes the whole of that superstructure. The progress, and very 'eXis"fence of industry and home-life must collapse if the foundation upon‘ which they are built are Wrecked by ‘gamblers, speculators and fools who are ljuet now taking a hand in exploiting land for all it is Worth.‘ Our social status may survive temporary ex-

ploitation or secondary industry, and trade, but it could never emerge 1111' scathed and unbroken from an exploitation of- the one essential to human life-land. With the dairyfarmer getting five-Shililngs for butter-fat, no wheat-grower. would grow wheat for him under fifteen shillings a, :bushel; IF) sheep-farmer would furnish wool~for him under four shillings a pound; no stockbreeder would sell~him cows under £SO a head, and if these prices were not forthcoming all land would rapidly be put toprodueing milk-dust. Something should be done to st'6p this dust being flung ifio the eyes of simple, unsuspecting men, who imagine that the present fugitive milk-dust prices are permanent, and are likely to increase ra.ther than decline Through the cloud of milk-dust they fail to see what Mr. Harold Beadehanip tells them they have to contend with; they do 1101 i realise that their market is 12,000 miles away; that between them and their market there are rapidly increasing and already formidable competitors in the milk-dust business; that Europe is so impoverished that the people cannot buy milk-dust for their babies while the producer's price is five shillings a pound; that conipetitors thousands of miles nearer market, working land at a. ‘tenth the money they are ‘paying in New ‘Zealand, can flourish on a price for milkdust that means sure bankruptcy to men here who pay from £SO to £IOO an acre for their land, howeydr‘ good that land may be; -that péople have already been educated to use Butte? substitutes, and actually prefer them to butter in the form it reaches them, but nothing is more certain than that they will be brought to a r'e"alisation of their folly when, perhaps, nothing but bankruptcy faces them. It has not occurred to them that land taxation will be levied on the values they are themselves fixing. When disaster overtakes them tlfese men will appeal to the Gsovernment to save them from the results o,f'tlleir wild, “thoughtless speculation; they want all, the profits, but they will uriblushirigly ask the Government,to,_,bcalf the losses. We urge that the people who, through their Government, have spent hundreds of thousands of pounds in building Up the dairying industry, have a right to insist that. milk-dust maniacs be not allowed to disastrously contri--bute to destroying what. the people have paid dearly to build up, It is impossible for present prices of dairy produce to continue for long after the open market -.-. ceases ‘to compete against an Imperial comniandeer, and what will happen then to the men who have land bought at £IOO an acre? Tl-aflicking in land is a cuise Beside which. the meat ‘trust is insignificant; whose hands will the land at £IOO an acre fall into when foreclosure time comes? Is meat trust and combine money concerned in these heavy mortgages, and if so, is. the meat trust battcning upon this country by swooping down upon ._the land’? While Farmers’ Unions and ‘Government are concerned with, markets, are trusts and combines, stealthily, surreptitiously getting possession of our best fattening ‘lands, in the vicinity of freezing works which may also tumble into their possession through the failure of farmers to pay oft their mortgages at due date? It is this, or they will keep the mortgagors on as their slaves, as they are already doing in other countries. Will the Farmers’ Union consider this new land malady -in all its bearings with a view to safeguarding their industry and the eounti-y’s ‘best interests?