UNEMPLOYMENT AND FARM NEEDS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 99, 29 April 1935, Page 6

UNEMPLOYMENT AND FARM NEEDS.

The letter from "Query" in your issue of April 24 calls for some comment. It is ridiculous to expect the public to "judge for themselves" over one isolated case. Your correspondent is audacious enough to "query" the very incidence of unemployment, which covers a very wide field, and almost every trade, profession and blind-alley occupation. Shall we say that 75 per cent of all the men and youths so situated are not practical farm hands, such ones as "Query" requires for her farm? Again, her assertion that farmers have been "sacking" their men, as she indelicately puts it, for the last two months, rather aggravates the position, and furnishes fresh material for the public to judge from. The public largely consists of people whose position has been weakened by a lack of trade owing to unemployment, directly and indirectly, plus the unemployed themselves, of whom there are some thousands in this city alone, and dozens in every village and hamlet in New. Zealand. While sympathising with "Query" in her trouble, and her inability to secure suitable labour, I would remind her that other people have their troubles, too, and also that there is more than one sifo to every question. I am a labourer and mixed jack of all trades, but for the last three years have done more writing than anything else, applying for positions that are more illusive than the storied will-'o-the-wisp. Forty-two applications have I sent out since the New Year to as far as National Park and Tauranga, seven of them being, for farm work. Two replies I received to the effect that positions were filled. One other was the acceptance of my tender for a small scrub-cutting contract, which I completed in four weeks. That is all I have done in 10 weeks. I spent a little of that hard-earned cash' in advertising for work, but my advertisements were not even not.iccd. I have made every effort to keep from leaning on the taxpayer, but have got sick of it all, have re-registered to-day, and, being unmarried, am going into the first camp where there is room. Is this what "Query" crudely describes as "the dole"? There is no such' thing as the dole. Men in relief camps are paid by contract in most cases; therefore, no work, no pay. Every man who registers, if fit, has to signify his willingness to accept camp, 4a, or whatever offers, or he will get no sustenance. If unfit, he lias to satisfy the medical officer to that effect. Besides, he has to fill in a form answering as many questions as would sink a battleship. Unfortunately, there are certain farms where men are ill-fed, insulted, and generally treated like dogs, and can anyone be blamed after such experiences, for striving to get something better? MEADOWLATtK.