The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE. SATURDAY, APRIL 10, 1920. WHAT CLOSE SETTLEMENT MEANS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3457, 10 April 1920, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE.

SATURDAY, APRIL 10, 1920. WHAT CLOSE SETTLEMENT MEANS.

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

While many “men who possess that undeniable experience which constitutes them authorities are most seriously and solemnly warning would-be farmers from purchasing land at fabulous,..boom prices, there are hundreds Jot‘ thousands of acres of good land ' available at reasonable prices, land on i which men may, with energy and coniimonsense, whether they have experi‘cncc or not, cannot fail. A country newspaper ofiice is looked upon, and i made use ,of_.-asaa genegal inquiry otlice l by people ivan.‘ti'ng _,alnl'o-'st ‘ ‘anything j relative to land labour. , The 1 newspaper manager’s most extraorl dinnry experience in this connection is it that nearly -Q~.VCl_')’ iuquirer, whether he ‘- or she is hardput .to for employment, i wan.tin.g a, house, era farm, even down to the lladyhelp, nearly everyone re- ’ fuses work, .unless.it is either in town or very close .to town. The man wantiing a farm, .in most cases, wants one not. far from .the_borough boundary, hence land azfew miles from town will sell at ‘three or four times the price» _ than far better land further back will «fetch. There is " the extraordinary position that land values to these town ifarincrs are not governed -by the pro,ducing capacity of :thc land, but by ‘the nearness ofit to town. Men will ipay up to two hundred pounds, an iacre for land alongside towns, which, ‘in these times of high prices, nothing can profitably be grown excepting ; cows, and good cows at -that. ‘A farni in the Levin neighbourhood recently 1 sold for two hundred pounds an’? acre, one hundred acres would cost the purchaser twenty thousand pounds. Fancy wheat being grown on such a farm; if every inch of it returned thirty bushels an acre, and the farmer was fortunate enough to get ten shillings at bushel inet for it, he would not have money ' enough to pay his rates, taxes, and in- , terest; his cost. of living, and whatever , luxuries were indulged in would have ' to be paid for from some ! other source. Does it not 5 occur to the men who are risking their life ’s work on dairy farming that high prices -are the result of dei mand just as surely in the production I of the source of milk as in the: produc- ; tion of milk "itself? While land is more iprofitable in dairying than in wheat I and wool—growing, the number of cows will rapidly increase in every country of the world, and in a surprisingly. I short time buyers of highpriced land. I will be amazed and chagrined to find {that the bottom has fallen «out of their milk-bucket. There is something very seriously awry in the economics of any country in which land and} labour is avasted in lahd booms, and in ‘ boom bursts. The practice of selling something in which there is no actual value always has b‘rought its own destruction, and there are indications that the boom-burst ‘here is very much nearer at hand than many people are aware of. There is no civilised nation in which contentment reigns, dissatisfaction and tumult extends wherever] mankind lives. In New Zealand there is never ceasing struggleagainst one form of oppression, in Britain against another form, and in some other countries the struggles have developed! into civil war and revolution of the‘ most bitter and bloody character. When men sell farm land at two hundred pounds an acre they sell something which has no value, and the purchaser b_l‘l.‘.’-q Sfimething that, -as a farmer, he vvrll never be able to convert into cash at a. profit. Only :1. eompa.rati'vel_v few years ago Taihape land was

considered dear at ' five pounds an acre, and the hinterland was of question'a‘ble value at ten shillings an acre. It is 1-veyll known that some of the best land in HaWke’s Bay was bought at sixpence an. acre. The men who purchased the Taihape and IHawke’s Bay land had ample" encoul\a.gcmen’b to Work it, feeling secure from Whatever vicissitudes ixfthe price of primary prorlucfs might arise in the future.