AGRICULTURAL BANKING.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 July 1922, Page 7

AGRICULTURAL BANKING.

AN AID TO PRODUCTION. Wellington, July 25. I am more than ever convinced of the great necessity for pushing on with our agricultural co-operative banking proposals in conjunction with our general co-operative plan (said Mr. W. J. Polson at the Farmers’ Union conference to-day). Upon easy and practicable finance depends the success as well as the prosperity of the producer. I do not wish to appear as a carping critic of our banking institutions. They have done as well as it lies in their power to do. I believe that in most cases our banks have strained every nerve to carry the load which in the last year or two has been placed on their shoulders. My humble . criticism is directed at the system—a system which is admittedly imperfect, and which criticism and constructive proposals for reform must be of some value, in improving. If we can build up w’ith Government aid an agricultural banking system in New Zealand we shall have laid the foundation of prosperity that shall not be ephemeral.. What is needed is an educative campaign so that the whole question may be more fully understood. We are entangled in conservatism. The system which served our fathers is one we are loth to disturb. We are slow to realise that there can be any safe system of finance that is not entirely based upon a gold currency basis, and when any proposals are made to us which contemplate changes in that respect we are apt to imagine that it is the bale of paper and printing press under another guise. Nothing of the sort is suggested. The Danish and German systems have stood the test, and are adaptable to our needs. Modern ideas go very much further than the suggestions the Farmers’ Union has put forward.