WHY FARMING DOES NOT PAY.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 461, 9 April 1890, Page 6

WHY FARMING DOES NOT PAY.

When a mariner is navigating an unknown coa3b, no matter how careful and vigilant he may be, he is liable to run his ship on a shoal or reef. There is no chart to point out the locality of shoals or reefs, nor the strength or direction of currents. This simile holds good with farming in the early days of any colony. Nothing is known for certain. Most things done are more or less experimental. This was so much the case that it used to be said that those who came heie without money had a better chance than the settlers who brought money. Those who brought money mostly bought their experience very dear. Those who came without money gob the benefit of their em-t ployer’s experience, and good wages at the same time. And it very often happened, when the men employed were sober and intelligent, that masters and men changed places, the servant becoming his former master's employer. This may seem strange to those who come to the colony now, but old settlers can recollect very many instances of the kinu in the very early days. When a colony hap been settled as long as New Zealand there is very little need to experiment. Men who have been here for the last twenty or thirty years should have had ample time to know by results what this country is best adapted for. We surely have had sufficient time to find out what pays and what does nob. Of course some things may pay one year and not the the next. But we mean the average results of a number of years.

Now it is most important to get at the average results of past years just to find out what we can produce to pay, and what we had better leave alone ; and it may be remarked hero that the subject of land settlement must be treated as a purely commercial question. There is no reason why the farmer should be expected to carry on his business from philanthropic or patriotic motives. Some writers seem to expect this from the farmer, but never from any other trade or profession. To come back bo the subject. Some of our settlers have had between forty and fifty years’ experience. Surely they can tell us what, on the whole, has paid and what has not paid. We have been very fond of parading, especially before our Australian friends, the number of bushels of wheat arid oats we can grow to the acre, and the number of sheep we can graze per acre. But what is of more importance to tbe intending settler, our statistics do nob show —that is, the profit per acre tbe farmer or gi-azier makes : in fact, the net return for capital and labour expended. But, it may be said, that all depends on the prices of land and labour—that’s it exactly. Our forty or fifty years’ experience has bold us (or should have done) the various grazing and agricultural capabilities of the land. Now, what is left for us to calculate is the pries we can give for a certain piece of land bo enable us to get a fair rate of interest for our capital and pay the current rate of wages. Some will say, “You can never make such nice calculations with regard to farming ; look at the way the price of produce fluctuates.” We are afraid that a great many farmers never try to enter into such calculations—they only guess. During the last ten or fifteen years the prices of all agricultural produce in the European market (to which we send our surplus) never varied less. New methods of preserving and rapid communication with all parts of the world have the tendency to equalise prices and prevent the violent fluctuations known in the past. The great rise in the price of beef, mutton and dairy produce that took place during the time we were spending millions on immigration and public works, did much injury to many of our farmers. They became far too sanguine of the future, which induced them to base their calculations almost entirely upon the inflated prices produced wholly by local consumption. Perhaps we did nob reflect that the thousands of our population who were employed on public works would cease to be consumers, and either become producers or leave the country. Looking back to the time we were spending our borrovved millions, there seems to have been an entire absence of common sense and reflection. What work were we to find for the men when they ceased to be employed on our public works ? Did we ever take this question into serious consideration ? The fact is, our attention was confined exclusively to attracting moneyed men to come here and speculate in land. Have our railways promoted settlement on the land or speculation with the land? Have our land laws in the past encouraged settlement or speculation ? Anyone who has travelled our principal lines of railway sees the answer in bens of thousands of acres bought, but lying idle After more than ten thousand of our labouring population had left us, then our legislators pretended to try and make our land laws more liberal and attractive by allowing waste land to be taken up on deferred payments or perpetual lease. But the speculator could buy for cash at twentyfive per cent, less, and let his land lie idle as long as he liked. It is easy to see which class they meant to encourage. If a man knows his own business as a farmer or grazier the profitable occupation of land depends entirely upon the price he gives for* it. They who have given more than the producing value for land can never make farming pay. Those who advocate a tax on the xmimproved value of _ land want the farmer to obtain land at such a price as will enable him to got a remunerative return for his labour and capital. Those who oppose the land tax are the class who wish to sell the farmer land at a price that he cannot give and get any return for labour and capital. Sfrictly speaking, this question of a land tax means the profitable settlement of land. Those who oppose a land tax want all the profits from land to go to the speculator.