FARMERS’ FINANCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 5 May 1922, Page 8

FARMERS’ FINANCE.

AN AGRICULTURAL BOARD MR. STUART WILSON’S SUGGESTION. “The great need of this country at the present time is provision -for the marketing of our produce on sound business lines,” said Mr. W. Stuart Wilson to a Dominion reporter this week. “I believe that the formation of the Meat Producers’ Board was- a step in. that direction. But now we are hearing of a dairy produce pool, a bacon pool, and so forth. The multiplication of pools is not going to su.ve the difficulties of the'farmera. It easily may lead to the creation of the* very difficulties that we are all anxious to avoid. My own strong conviction is that what the producers of New Zealand require more than anything else at the present is the establishment of an agricultural bank. The financing of the meat producers, which is to be a very important part of the work of the Meat Producers’ Board, wouhi be an incidental function of such a bank. “That was the subject of my petition to Parliament last session, that money should be raised to the extent of three-quarters of a million per annum for the purpose of establishing an agricultural bank. I suggested that an agricultural bank should be established in New Zealand, and that contributions towards its funds should be compulsory. A big national effort in this direction is not beyond the capacity of the Dominion. If 300,000 people were contributing only £3 a year towards the bank that I have in mind, an income of £900.000 per annum would be created. That would be sufficient basis for operations on a very large scale. There is nothing new or startling about the idea of compulsion in such a connection. We have already accepted the principle of a compulsory meat pool. The Government has its compulsory superannuation schemes, by means of which it compels members of the Civil Service to make provision for their own welfare. Why should not we have the same principle applied to the creation of a great agricultural bank, which would be of enormous benefit to every producer, and, indeed, to every criizen of tne Dominion ?

“The agricultural banks which have been established in many countries of Europe, including Denmark and Holland, have all been uniformly successful. They cannot. fail to succeed, because they merely apply to the service of the farmers the credit that the farmers in combination are able to command. There are agricultural banks in the United States and in Germany. ’l’hese banks are al>le to help the farmer at every stage of his operations, from the tilling of the soil to the marketing of the produce. They save him money, they give him a sense of secuiity that he can hardly gain from any other source, and they stimulate production. We all know that New Zealand’s greatest need to-day is increased production. Why should we hesitate to adopt a tried and proved means of attaining that end? “We have no chance at all of getting fair treatment in the markets of the world unless we marshal our financial resources. The farmers of New Zealand have to sell their meat and wool, their butter and cheese, in markets that are dominated to a large extent by some of the most powerful financial organisations in the world. The meat trusts and rings control hundreds of millions of capital. The producers ot New Zealand cannot hope to get the returns that they ought to get if they face such combinations in disorder. The Government and the producers have recognised that fact, and they have established the Meat Producers’ Hoard to deal with some phases of the problem. But the board’s hands 1 would ’ be ’ strengthened enormously if it had behind it an agricultural bank of the kind that I am advocating.”