230 Journal of Agriculture, Victoria. [25 April, 1917. 



Finance: By Increasing Production the Farmer is Helping to 

 Maintain the Financial Stability of Australia and the Empire. 



The questions of War and Finance are closely bound up in each 

 other: On every hand we hear that money is "tight," that the rates of 

 exchange and interest are high — that there will be increased taxation 

 to meet this. jSTow, every man that brings increased acreage under the 

 plough, quite apart from any question of profit, is helping to minimize 

 the taxation on himself and incidentally on everybody else. The reason 

 is that, in a young country like Australia, where considerable develop- 

 ment is going on, our exports are not yet sufficient to pay for our imports. 

 and the difference has to be paid for in actual cash — money which, if 

 applied in other directions, would command a high rate of interest ; so 

 that it is specially good business at the present time to reduce this 

 difference to a minimum by maintaining our trade balance. 



Looking further afield, it is now recognised as undoubted national 

 economy for the British people to be able to obtain as much wheat as 



' ' Win-the-War Wheat ' ' on the way to the Railway Station. 



(Food for a battalion for tliree months.) 



they can get from the Dominions overseas, and so keep the money within 

 the Empire. 



It is Good Business to Sow a Large Area this Year. 



There are two main differences that separate the business of agricul- 

 ture from that of any manufacturing concern, such as a factory. The 

 factory manager can control each stage in the manufacture of his 

 product, and, generally speaking, makes an article to supply a definite 

 want. The farmer, on the other hand, is subject to a climatic factor 

 and to a market factor. Once his crop is sown he mast leave it to the 

 tender mercy of the elements, and his market is indefinite; that is to 

 say, one year there may be a widespread shortage, and prices be very 

 remunerative, but at another time there may be a world surplus, and 

 prices fall away to nothing. 



