MR MORGAN'S PAPER.

Waikato Argus, Volume IV, Issue 234, 13 January 1898, Page 3

MR MORGAN'S PAPER.

to the EDiTem. Sir, —Referring to your leader in Tuesday's issue oa the paper read by me at the Farmers' Club, 1 would ask you to read the same carefully, when you will find that in speaking of putting up prices, I state distinctly that prices must be kept below importing level, and as for this colony being ab c to control the world's markets, I quite agree with you whenyru Btate that it is nonsense to tilk of such a thing. If the farmers throughrut the English e-peakina world had to combine, then the world's markets could I e controlled, but not otherwise. I still maintain, however, that we can control the markets of this colony up to importing price, and in the case of wheat, when we have a million bushels' surplus our returns will 1 e a quarter of a million pounds greater if we sell at importing iustead of exporting price. Referring to what yeu say about taxation being the principal contributory cause of the unsatisfactory fo.ition ct farnvrs, there is no doubt we have to bear the brunt of it; but New Zealand is not the only couutry where farming docs not pay. It is the same the world over, and I maintain that for years past farmers have been telling most of their productions for lesi than ccst. Take wheat aga : n. Fifty years ago, before the days of reapers and binders, no fanner dreamt of growing wheat for less than sevrn or eight shillings per bushel, now we grow it tor half that and sometimes less. Now, it may snrprLe you to learn that it cost tin farmer, fifty years ago, enly eight to nine shillings per acre to have his wh at cut, bound and stooked by hand ; or about lighteeupence more than it costs at present with all our reapers and binders. Machinery may enable a farmer to produce ten times as much as before, but it does rot reduce the cost so much as people thiDk. It has been notorious for years past that the best larmers in all parts of the world have gone to the wall, simply because every thing they produced has been sold under cost, and the more they produced the quicker they lost their capital, no matter their management.—l aii^Wc., J. D. P. Morgan. Hautapu, January 11th, 1898.