The Argus at KellyGang 27/4/1880 (4)
Selectors
The opinion seems to be growing in the district that farming can only be profitably carried on where the grazing of stock is combined with agriculture. The poorer selectors have not just now the means of buying sheep or cattle, and are waiting until their good harvest comes in. Both climate and soil appear to be highly favourable for wheat growing, and on the strong red land no manuring will be needed for some years. But the prospects of the selector depend not only on the quantity and quality of his crop, but on the activity of the grain market. It may be assumed that in the present year the Benalla selectors have not more than a fifth or sixth of their holdings cultivated. Off 60 acres of land they can rely on obtaining about £250 worth of grain in a good season. Deducting from the proceeds of the harvest the cost of cultivating the soil, threshing and carting the wheat to market, it is obvious that only a small surplus will be left for bringing up the family.
As a rule the selectors-and especially the poorer selectors have large families. All, therefore, are under a pressing necessity to increase their area of cultivated ground. It has been shown by the experiences of the present year, that the consuming capacity of the population of this colony has been reached, and that a market must now be looked for in England. The hope and desire of the wheat growing selectors is to increase their production fourfold, and the important question waiting to be answered is this-When they have so increased, their production, will there be a steady market open to them? A slackened demand for grain next autumn, when the crop will probably be one fourth greater than it has been this year, may prove almost as disastrous to the struggling selectors as a second visitation of the rust.
Without looking so far ahead, however, as to anticipate the time when each selector shall have got the maximum quantity of land under crop, it is enough to say that the hopes of a large body of the Benalla selectors are dependent for the present on the results of the season they are now preparing for. They cannot stop as yet to look beyond January, 1881, because until that month has arrived they will not know whether they are going to overcome or to break down under the preliminary difficulties-whether they are going to survive the probationary period, or to fail and be driven to other means of earning a livelihood for themselves and their children. It is necessary for their present prosperity that they should be able to procure machinery and implements at a moderate price, and that confidence should be restored between them and the holders of capital, so that free selectors in need of £100 £200, or £300 may be able to raise a loan at rates of interest not exceeding 8 or 9 per cent, and if possible without the necessity of incurring vexatious charges in the form of commission registration fees &c. One of the mutual insurance societies is lending money to the selectors at rates varying from 8 to 10 per cent for periods of three years, and at the same time making the borrower insure his life whereby it in- creases the profits derived from premiums. Societies of this kind do not concern themselves in the same way as the banks do about the question whether the lessee is regularly paying his rent.
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