Part II.

Chapter VIII.

The Great Problem Solved.—A Remedy for Poverty by State Co-Operative Farming.

Estimated Cost to build, stock, furnish, and pay the First Year's Expenses of a 25,000-acre Farm.

	£	s.	d.
One building complete	8,000	0	0
Furnishing complete	3,000	0	0
Cowsheds, stables, piggeries, &c.	1,500	0	0
Tools, wagons, seeds, &c.	2,500	0	0
200 cows, at £3	600	0	0
4 bulls, at £25	100	0	0
50 bullocks, at £8	400	0	0
16 horses, at £8	128	0	0
12,500 sheep, at 5s	3,125	0	0
50 breeding-pigs, at £1 10s.	75	0	0
3 boar pigs, at £2	6	0	0
1,000 fowls, at 1s. 3d.	62	10	0
1,000 ducks, at 1s. 6d.	75	0	0
250 geese, at 4s.	50	0	0
250 turkeys, at 4s.	50	0	0
25 labourers, fifty-two weeks at 12s. per week, and their keep at 12s. per week	1,560	0	0
5 working-foremen, 52 weeks at £1 8s., and their keep at 12s. per week	520	0	0
To supply the store with tea, sugar, flour, and other necessaries	1,875	0	0
Carried forward	23,626	10	0page 21
Brought forward	23,626	10	0
One month's wages to the permanent staff, to have everything ready to start	187	6	0
Interest on £25,000, at 4 per cent	1,000	0	0
For extras	186	4	0
Total expenses of first year	25,000	0	0
			4
Expenses of four farms	100,000	0	0
			4
Expenses of sixteen farms	£400,000	0	0

Here I will show by my calculations the annual expenses to keep or support these sixteen farms, with a staff of 432 persons, and 2,000 so-termed unemployed, at the following rates of wages and their keep, allowing very liberally for wear, tear, and breakages, fires lights, and medical comforts:—

	£	s.	d.
16 managers, at £300	4,800	0	0
16 doctors, at £300	4,800	0	0
16 clerks, at £100	1,600	0	0
16 assistants, at £50	800	0	0
16 schoolmasters, at £75	1,200	0	0
16 schoolmistresses, at £50	800	0	0
Carried forward	14,000	0	0page 22
Brought forward	14,000	0	0
16 male nurses, at £75	1,200	0	0
16 female nurses, at £50	800	0	0
48 cooks, at £50	2,400	0	0
96 tradesmen, at £100	9,600	0	0
160 farm-hands, at £50	8,000	0	0
2,000 unemployed, at £20 16s.	41,600	0	0
2,432 peoples' keep at £16 5s. 7d. per annum	39,585	17	4
Fires and lights	3,200	0	0
Wear, tear, and breakages	3,200	0	0
Medical comforts	4,000	0	0
Better table for the staff	4,000	0	0
Extras	4,118	0	0
Interest on £400,000, at 4 per cent.	16,000	0	0
Annual expenses	£151,704	5	4
Multiplied by five years			5
Five years' expenses without returns	£758,521	16	8

Thus we have provided employment for 480 labourers for fifty-two weeks at an average cost of £1 per week each and their keep. We have erected sixteen large buildings capable of accommodating from three to four hundred people each, with a hospital for males and one for females to each. We have furnished the buildings with everything necessary; we have well stocked the farms; erected all necessary outhouses, such as stables, cowsheds, piggeries, fowl-houses, &c.; provided all necessary machinery, working implements, wagons, seeds, &c.; and have stock worth £30,000 in the stores to commence with.

And these farms will offer remunerative employment to all surplus labour; they will provide a home for the aged and needy, and so totally abolish the present degrading system of relief by charitable aid. This scheme, when carried out, will give trades to all our orphan boys and girls, or such other technical education as will enable them to become good colonists, able to earn their own maintenance anywhere. It will offer the same privilege to the children of all parents desiring it. These farms will offer these same privileges to those who are in need for all coming time, and will be more than self-supporting. Is such an object well worthy of the spending of £400,000?

Allow me to show here the possible annual returns:—

	£	s.	d.
3,200 cows, at 2s. 6d. per week each	20,800	0	0
2,800 calves, at £1 each	2,800	0	0
200,000 sheep's clips, at 2s. per clip	20,000	0	0
160,000 sheep, averaging 14s. 3d. each	114,000	0	0
156,000 clips from lambs, at 1s. each	7,800	0	0
156,000 sheepskins, at 2s. 6d. each	19,500	0	0
800 pigs, 10 young each, 8,000, at 10s. each	4,000	0	0
Carried forward	188,900	0	0page 23
Brought forward	188,900	0	0
16,000 fowls lay 60 eggs a year each, 960,000; sell 800,000, at 6d. per dozen	1,666	13	3
160,000 fowls reared and sold at 1s. each	8,000	0	0
16,000 ducks lay 60 eggs a year each, 960,000; sell 800,000, at 6d. per dozen	1,666	13	3
160,000 ducks reared and sold at 1s. 6d. each	12,000	0	0
1,600 geese lay 10 eggs a year each, 16,000 eggs; 16,000 geese reared and sold at 3s. each	2,400	0	0
1,600 turkeys realise the same as geese	2,400	0	0
2,432 people produce and eat one shilling's worth of vegetables each per week	6,323	4	0
2,432 people require 885,248lb. of meat a year 116 bullocks, at £8 each	928	0	0
116 bullock-hides, at 15s. each	87	0	0
1,000 calf-skins, at 5s. each	250	0	0
3,000 bottles of calves-foot jelly, at 1s. per bottle	150	0	0
3,000 pints of neats-foot oil, at 6d. a pint	75	0	0
Interest on moneys lent in assisting settlers	3,000	0	0
Income on rent from land	6,000	0	0
Income on the purchase of goods and goods supplied	1,200	0	0
16,000 sheep at 50lb. each, 800,000lb.; 1,000 calves at 200lb. each, 200,000lb.; 116 bullocks at 600lb. each, 69,600lb.: total, 1,069,600lb., giving 184,352lb. for bone, call it 80 tons, at £4 per ton	320	0	0
Annual returns from sixteen farms	235,366	10	6
Multiplied by five years			5
Returns in five years	£1,176,832	12	6*

As two thousand families are to have 100 acres of land each, at supposed a value of £1 per acre, let us see how much is returned to the State in five years by rent from land:— page 24

Number of Years.	Number of Families settled.	Amount of Land required annually.	Value of Land, at £1 per Acre.	Annual Income by Rent from Land at 5 per Cent.
		Acres.	£	£
1	400	40,000	40,000	2,000
2	400	40,000	40,000	4,000
3	400	40,000	40,000	6,000
4	400	40,000	40,000	8,000
5	400	40,000	40,000	10,000
5 years	2,000	200,000	200,000	30,000

Six thousand families have been supplied, although only two thousand are settled.

All of these would be supplied from the State farm. The managers of the State farms could also become the purchasers of all products from such settlers. Thus, as Mr. John Brooks, of Church-hill, Waikato, remarks, the small farmer will be saved the expense of the machinery necessary to render the produce of his few acres fit for the market, as he would be certain of a market for whatever he produced. Does the reader say the Government has no right to trade in this way? Let him not forget that the Government is Healing with that portion of the State in such a way as will provide a home and employment for all those who would otherwise be living upon the industry of the other portion of the State as paupers.

My total income for five years is made up by productions from the following resources:—

	£	s.	d.
3,200 cows, at 2s. 6d. per head per week	104,000	0	0
14,000 calves, at £1 each	14,000	0	0
1,000,000 clips from sheep, at 2s. per clip	100,000	0	0
780,000 clips from lambs, at 1s. per clip	39,000	0	0
780,000 sheepskins, at 2s. 6d. each	97,500	0	0
700,000 sheep sent Home frozen, at 15s. each	525,000	0	0
80,000 sheep supplied as food, at 10s. each	40,000	0	0
20,000 sheep supplied to settlers, at 5s. each	5,000	0	0
580 bullocks supplied as food, at £8 each	4,640	0	0
580 bullock-hides, at 15s. each	433	0	0
5,000 calf-hides, at 5s. each	1,250	0	0
800 pigs—40,000 young, at 10s. each	20,000	0	0
800,000 fowls, at 1s. each	40,000	0	0
333,333 dozen eggs, at 6d. per dozen	8,333	6	6
800,000 ducks, at 1s. 6d. each	60,000	0	0
333,333 dozen eggs, at 6d. per dozen	8,333	6	6
80,000 geese, at 3s. each	12,000	0	0
Carried forward	1,079,489	13	0page 26
Brought forward	1,079,489	13	0
80,000 turkeys, at 3s. each	12,000	0	0
400 tons of bones, at £4 per ton	1,600	0	0
2,432 people have produced and paid for vegetables	31,616	0	0
15,000 bottles calves-foot jelly, at 1s. a bottle	750	0	0
15,000 pints of neats-foot oil, at 6d. a pint	375	0	0
Five years' rent from land, at £1 per acre	30,000	0	0
Five years' interest on money lent to settlers	15,000	0	0
Five years' income by purchase of products	3,600	0	0
Five years' income by goods supplied	2,400	0	0
By the saving of £25,000 a year for five years, which would have been paid as poor rates	125,000	0	0
By five years' improvements to 200,000 acres of land, at £1 per acre	200,000	0	0
Five years' returns	1,501,832	13	0
Five years' expenditure	758,521	16	8
Five years' surplus over expenditure	743,310	16	4
Borrowed money to be paid back	400,000	0	0
Leaving a credit balance of	343,310	16	4
Properties of sixteen farms worth	380,104	0	0
Grand total credit to the State	£723,414	16	4

I am told by farmers and others that lambs will not realise 10s. each, whereas I show proof they will realise 14s. 3d. each. For instance, to feed the people on the State farms, I have shown it costs the State 3d. per pound for meat; but the State has not to buy the meat, it is bred and fed upon the estate, and lambs this year are sheep next year, and we do not require to eat the lambs. The State has 200,000 sheep to start with; I have calculated they will produce 160,000 lambs annually; the State gets rid of 160,000 annually, thus keeping up a standing number of 200,000. I have calculated 16,000 are required annually as food, and allowing they weigh 40lb. each, at 3d., it will amount to 10s. each. I supply settlers at the rate of 4,000 annually, at 5s. each, and send to England 140,000 annually frozen; and, if they only average 50lb. each, and are sold in a London market at 5d. per pound, it will amount to £1 0s. 10d. each. By my calculations I have allowed the State to net 10s, each. If so, there would be 4,000 annually supplied to settlers at 5s., 16,000 used on the farms for food at 10s., and 140,000 sent to England frozen at 15s. each: total, 160,000 sheep disposed of annually at the afore-mentioned prices, and the result is 14s. 3d. each. I am told calves would not be worth 10s. each. But the State will kill 1,000 annually for food, and calves at three or four months, if they only weigh 150lb., at 3d. per pound, would amount to £1 17s. 6d. each. Those not used would grow into cows or bullocks, and so replace older ones. I have only priced sheep's fleeces at 2s. and lambs at 1s. each, and sheepskins at 2s. 6d. each. It is a well known fact that sheep's fleeces will average from 3s. 6d. to 4s., and lambs from 1s. 5d. to 2s. each, and sheepskins will average 4s. each. It will thus be seen that I have allowed a big margin for expenses; so that the State would net what I have stated.

To the credit balance, which I have shown in five years to be £743,310 16s. 4d., would have to be added the number of orphans who under a co-operative State system would be earning the cost of their own maintenance from the age of twelve to fourteen. This number may be fairly placed at five hundred, which, at a cost of £1 5 per head per annum, would be a saving of £7,500 a year. And I have shown that apprentice boys earn in addition to the cost of their maintenance £132 12s. each, and they only receive £67 12s. each. I shall allow there are three hundred such apprentices, from each of whom the State will be gaining £9 5s. 8d. a year, or a total saving per annum of £2,785.

I think I have shown very clearly that a home with all reasonable comforts can be provided for all in need, so doing away with our present unsatisfactory and degrading system of relief. What is it makes people so selfish to-day but the fear of old age or adversity coming upon them and finding them without any means of support, and nothing but poverty and suffering staring them in the face? Then, we, the people, are one national family, and are bound to provide for our unfortunate sisters and brothers; and in what better my can we do so than by State co-operative farms?