MORE PRODUCTION.

Taranaki Daily News, 9 November 1922, Page 2

MORE PRODUCTION.

•HELPING THT FARMERS. MR. CORRIGAN’S PROPOSALS. Speaking at Hawera recently, Mr. J. R. Corrigan, Liberal candidate for the Patea seat, devoted, considerable attention to the question, of production, the financing of settlers, and the settlement of the land. Some of hid (proposals are somewhat original. He said: The position is this: To solve the problem to-day we must have more production. To get more production we must have more population, and to keep that population we must make room for them, and we must have cheap money. Now the financial stringency which exists at the present time is detrimental to more production. Mr. Massey, instead of easing it, has aggravated it by legislating for the financial institutions of the country to the detriment of the producers of the country. It was necessary in 1594 for the Government in power at that time to prop up the Bank of New Zealand. There are a great many here who don’t know that. I will tell you about it later on. It was also necessary through the war that we should assist the financial institutions in this country by guaranteeing their currency. It has also been necessary since the war when the financial stringency started that the Government should get behind the financial institutions of the country and put on a Moratorium Act to protect them from deposits held at call being withdrawn. That was quite right. I don’t blame Mr. Massey for that, at all. But where T do blame him is—he should have said to those institutions: “All right. I will do it. providing that the rate of interest doesn’t go up.” Now the rate of interest at that time was 6 per cent* No sooner had they the backing of the country behind them by legislation, which enabled them to keep the depositors’ money, than up went the rate of interest in these institutions from 6 to 7| per cent. That was his idea of increasing production. It went to increase the profits of the institutions responsible for him being in power at the present time. What he should have done is this—T have been told he did try to do it: He should have enacted a law hard and fast prohibiting them from raising the rate of interest. I heard those provisions were embodied in the Bill, but when it was referred to the Statutes Revision Committee all these safety clauses prohibiting the rise in interest were cut out, and the Bill went through without any protection for the producers and commercial men of the country to keep them from being exploited. However, that only goes to show you how he legislates for one class and one class only.

MEAT PRODUCERS AND DAIRYMEN. We will go a little further. lie saw it was necessary last, year to put. on “The Meat Producers Act.” The meat producers are, of course, the b'.g men of the country. Tie was very emphatic about getting*that through because the nine, knights that helped to get and keep him in powp- are very large meat producers, and he succeeded in getting the Bill through. Was his measure necessary to help thfe meat producers? I am not saying it was not necessary. but when you come down to the small farmer, the cow cockie, we asked for the same thing, and ho says: “We can’t give you the financial backing which wp gavp the meat produce’s Act.” “Will you give us without that?” hp wa« asked, and he said, “Yes,” but, unfortunately, some of his friends who are very much interested in the dairy producers of Now Zealand, not, in producing, but in exploiting them,have got the power to push Mr. Massey, wherever they want him to be. and they have .him now. and he says the Bill is talked out, although he admits there are six to one producers in favor of it. 1 Is that legislation for one class and! one only? T maintain it is. T maintain the dairy industry is the most vital to this district. It is one of the main exports of this country, amounting to only nineteen millions of money, and yet he can’t give them what he gave; liis nine knights that keep hirfi in. power. Now I woyld ask what it is that makCs New Zealand the wealthy country it is—her fertility of soil, and her climate? It is self-evident that any persons residing inside her shores are entitled to share the natural benefits Nature has given them. To increase production, it is necessary to get more people on the land.

CUTTING UP THE LAND. In the old Conservative days the land was held in big blocks. When the Liberal Party got into power they put through .what the old Conservative Party called •'the busting up tax”—the graduated land tax. It didn't have the effect the Liberal Party thought it. would. It was got over by the large land owners transferring certain portions of their land to relatives, and then they took a mortgage to secure themselves. Their actions were responsible for the introduction of the Mortgage Tax that is on the Statute Book at the present moment —a vexed question. However, that was necessary, but I think I can solve the problem in a far better way than that. My idea of a land policy is this: The land should be classified. Now any person with a knowledge of farming knows there are at least twenty different classes of land 'in New Zealand. It should be properly t ' ( ssified, and the best land should be raade to carry at least two male adults t > every hundred acres. If the persons holding that land don’t feel disposed to employ that labor on it. well then, they will have to get rid of it. But I maintain this, the land should <*arry the people according to its classification, and that will have the effect of creating more production, and a different method of farming, and will put New Zealand into a prosperous state. A LESSON FROM FRANCE. After the Franco-Prussian war, rrance i had an indemnity of two hundred mil- . lions put on her. They said she would .neyer pay it. It was paid in a very few years, and who paid it? The French peasant, the man on the land, and it was through the .land producing up to its maximum capacity that she was able to pay it off as she did. Now New Zealand is in the same position to-day. We have a tremendous national debt. If we increase production the population will be able in time, with good ‘management, to pay it off, and wp will look the world in the face, and say we paid our debts. We must have a. cheap money scheme to go on with the land policy,

NA'HONALISING THE BANK OF NEW ZEALAND. It was necessary in 1894 for the Government of New Zealand to prop up the Bank of New Zealand. Mr. Massey tells us we own a third of the Bank of New Zealand. I maintain we should own the other two-thirds and the sooner we own it the better for New Zealand. I don’t mean to take it by force. I say we should take it from the shareholders at a fair price, not inflated value, its real value. We then would have a State bank established. At the same time we could start rural banks as they have in Denmark, Norway, France, Switzerland, Canada, the United States, etc. If we had these rural banks, and they were used for financing farmers we would have -farmers’ banks which would provide cheap money for the farmers. We would have our State bank to do the commercial business of the country and the profits from it go to the consolidated revenue to help to decrease taxation.

While on the subject of farmers’ banks, if you will bear with me a moment, I would like just to read to you a portion of the report of a Mr. J. R. Cahill, who was sent in 1913 by the British Government across to the continent to report on farmers’ banks. He says this: “It is difficult to get exact figures of the amounts of the money lent to farmers by existing farmers’ banks; but when I tell you that, according to the New Zealand Government Journal of Agriculture, the amount lent in 1909 in Germany alone amounted to £17'2,800.000, and that without a penny of loss to either creditor />r member, you will have a faint idea of what ‘hayseeds’ can do when they are put to it. This amount increased in 1913 to 500 millions, still without losses. The same authority says this huge sum was lent at from 3V. to 4 per cent. Little wonder that Germany prospered. And ‘the one thing needful’ in New Zealand is cheap money to bring land up to its ordinary producing capacity. This alone would double and treble our exports.” FARMERS’ BANKS IN EUROPE.

Mr. J. R. Cahill, who was appointed by the British Government in 1913 to report on Farmers’ Banks In Europe, sums up in favor thus: 1. That they are banks to which 1.600.000 farmers belong, out of a total population engaged in farming (including laborers) of six millions. 2. That they are managed by farmers for farmers. 3. That they advance from 50 to 60 per cent, on land values. 4. That these advances are compulsory: they are compelled to every applicant who has the security. 5. That they protect and assist the tenant as well as the landlord. 7. That they lend in sums of from £5 tn £500.000. 8. That they foster co-operation, aome of them acting as the farmer’s merchant as well. 9. That the : r bonds arc recognised as first-class security with the great continental hanks. 10. That after having advanced over £500.000,000 their insolvency losses are one fifty-fifth those of other institutions. 11. That they lend at the lowest possible rates. 12. That they do not aim at making profits. These are twelve very startling points made by the highest authority in Britain. But for the war intervening farmers’ banks would have been established in Britain, and no doubt would have resulted in a revival of agriculture there. “In no modern state.” says J. R. Cahill. in his report to both Houses of the British Parliament’, “does organiseti effort for promoting and safeguarding the economic interests of agriculture appear to have been so persistent and so successful as in Germany, more especially in the direction of providing the farmer with facilities for obtaining credit, for acquiring the instruments of production and for disposing of his produce on the most favorable terms.” In fact, for doing precisely what we want in New Zealand. I maintain this is what we want in this country to provide the producers with cheap money. Farmer has the deeds of his property. He wishes to borrow, say 60 per cent, of the value. The land is valued, he borrows that 60 per cent., and he pays about 4 per cent, interest, and 1 to U/ 2 per cent, sinking fund, and in time the mortgage is paid off. They refuse no farmer that comes along; they have to take his security. If they run short of money, debentures are issued, and if the public don’t take them, then the Government has to take them. I can’t see why that couldn’t work in this country. It would give cheap money where money Js required for production. It would have the effect we want to get at', more production. Mr. Massey has thrown out a feeler in the last Governor’s speech. He said he was an advocate of agricultural banks. Now I am as certain of this as I am that I am standing here, Mr. sey has no more idea of giving you these State banks than I have of jumping over the Opera House. If he had. ho" would have done it hack in 1920 when it was necessary, and not thrown out a sprat for a mackerel as he is doing now, on the eve of an election. NATIVE LANDS. I would like to say this about more production. The native lands, the waste, and open lands of the country should be, thrown open for settlement and roaded before offering for selection. The native land question has been a long-standing one in New Zealand, and at the rate they are going on the problem will be solved in the 25th century. What should be done is that the Government should purchase all unproductive native lands, and pay the money into the public trustee. I don’t mean to beat the natives for them, or anything of the sort. T mean, pay the money into the public trustee, and then to pay over the money to the rightful owners as the Native Land Court, individualises the titles. That would allow settlement of these lands to be gone on with, and help to increase production in this country.