PROFITEERING RE FARMER.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 November 1921, Page 2

PROFITEERING RE FARMER.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —Mr. Grant’s expression as to the keeping of the producers going at all costs, and that the shortness of money was the greatest drawback to increased production In this country, as reported of his address on Friday’s meeting of the Thranaki A. and P. Society, was most expressive of the needs of tte farmers to-day, and the needs of the whole country if it is to be saved at all. But Mr. Grant does not give any remedy save that of economy, and where is that economy to come from? Out of the pockets of the producers who need the money to stop the drawback to increased production he speaks of? That will not kelp matters much at this stage. If the farmers have been extravagant the money has gone and but they cannot economise now .u»re than they are forced to do. That the farmers have all or even largely been so extravagant as is made out I do not believe, at least it has not been my experience of back-country farmers. They may have spent a little on wire, fencing, machinery, tools, grass seed, etc., and dearly ttey have had to pay for it from the profiteer, but that has been for the good of production. Now they cannot advance for the want of money, as Mr. Grant says, and so the country suffers right through. But that is not the worst position the farmers are finding themselves in. It is the Inability to pay their interest, rents, taxes, rates, etc. That is a very serious position for them, and simply blank ruin in front of them with small prospect of wool and meat advancing sufficiently for some years to come to save them. Then the drop in the price of butter that has been saving the country is the most serious blow to them. One shilling per pound will not pay working expenses on most of the farms in Taranaki, and how is the farmer to ijve, especially if the returned soldier settlers are to have half their butter-fat cheques taken from, them, and those who are not returned soldiers but who battled along single or shorthanded during the war? What of them? Are they all to go off the land because of tte excessive land prices they have been forced to pay through the curse of this country, the “land profiteer?” If the farmers have to go down by the hundreds throwing the country into bankruptcy they (the profiteers) are rhe men who will be the greatest cause of it outside of the fall in prices, simply because the farmers could recover themselves and meat the fall in prices, especially with economy, if it were not for the large amount of interest they have to meet for profiteering mortgagees, not the interest to be found on the hard cash provided by the honest unoney lender to improve the land. These lenders deserve every protection. If it were not for the great interest demanding from these exploiting mortgagees or profiteers they could carry on with some chance and hope, but hundreds and thousands cannot carry on another year with the prices in view. They have suffered through shipping blocks and falls in prices for several years back, not only last year, and they must go down, and a very serious crisis occur unless the Government help them out by legislation this session, not next session, when many have gone under. Make the profiteer pay, and save tte producers every time if you want to save the conn-' try, and restore our position to a safe one. Save the farmers from the excessive interest due to the profiteers, and they will recover. Or would you prefer to leave ths profiteers on top because present laws protect them ? Is that equity? 1 say no. Save the producers and punish the exploiters and profiteers. There Is the remedy as 1 see it, and the only one. I hope that you journalists will take this up for discussion, so that something or some remedy may be found, for it is more unjust than many think. The profiteers will lose in the' end on this land business, but why let the farmer go down first, who, through no fault of his own is so badly placed to-day. Let the land profiteer who made h’s money out of nothing go first.—l am, etc., ANXIOUS FARMER. Kotare, November 21.