GEORGE'S WAGES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 253, 24 October 1936, Page 1 (Supplement)

GEORGE'S WAGES.

FARM HANDS AND PRICES. A SCEPTICAL COUNTRYMAN. (By J.R.H.) Last Sunday I took the old car and a couple of bottles of beer out to sec George. George is a real dinkum farm hand, splattered to the eyes in mud and butterfat. He has always been a farm hand-—probably always will be. As I came round the corner of his bach he was hanging out his washing. "Hello, George," said I, "I thought you would have sent those old l'ags to have the nap rubbed off now you know the Government's generous scale of wages for farm hands." George cocked his head sideways and looked at me from between the legs of a pair of dripping denims. "Um! so that's what the townies think, is it?" he said slowly. "Well, not exactly," I hastened to correct. "I suppose, really, some 50 to 00 per cent silently pray you will be satislied and the balance are probably secretly hoping for something in the nature of a strike or revolution." George came from behind the cover of his washing. He was stripped to the waist. His face reddened. "Strike nothing," he ejaculated. "Me, don't I know I've got the light end of the log with the boss stuck in the mud at the butt end."

Then he paused, scratched his head and looked down sheepishly at his shoes. "Just the same, o' course, a bloke feels a bit of a mug hangin' on to this game, with all the big easy money around for other work. Damn it —a man is a mug." The Daily Round. "But you forget, George, that you lose no time through bad weather," I reminded him. George grinned. "Forget notliin' " he answered. "You've been listenin' to the Minister bleatin' out his only come-back to the Opposition. What gets me is how none of 'em seem to know enough to spike the only little pop-gun he had to excuse the low hourly rate —less than a bob an hour for most of us, average weeks — compared to the rates on any other job | you like to name. Take me, now. Fivethirty every mornin' I goes out for the cows, Sunday iucluded, wet or fine, frost or mist. For about two and a half hours the machines drive me like any factory hand all aggravated by the kinks an' twists of cow nature. It's mostly turned half-past eight by the time I'm through at the shed, an' the cows out to their pasture. Three times a week I take the cream out —another halfhour's job. Pretty soon, I suppose, it will bo every day. Night milkin' generally runs from 4.30 to seven, unless some spot of extra work makes it later. Wot's that—five an' a half hours a day without cream days—3B an' a half hours a week. Add the present three halfhours runnin' cream out —all regular as

clockwork and to a time-table, wet or fine, kick in' cow or non-kickin' engine— an' you'll sfbe the Hon. Mr. Blooinin' Armstrong has left us a pretty little two-headed gamble on the weather against the Public Works' 40-liours at two bob an hour. I reckon our little gamble on the weather is stacked just about as pretty as Mr. Nash has fixed the pack for our bosses with his butter prices. Takin' the butter market prospects, an' world trade, an' international conditions an' that all into it, I reckon he's fixed the price of butter at just what any of the speculators he's out to eliminate would have given any factorjin the country for their whole season's output, f.o.b. We're mugs —me an' my boss!" "Not mugs, George. Got a glass?" I asked. George produced two. Holding up the Standard. "But, George, don't you understand butter prices must not rise so high as to check consumption at Home or elsewhere on the world's markets," I said gently. "Oh, yes, I understand that all right," he answered. "Export businesses have got to be run on the economic level set by the country exported to. Public Works, of course, is just spendin' public money, an' any high old standard you like goes. An' sheltered industries — well, it's just a matter of fixin' the price an' then sliarin' the money . out between bosses an' men. 'Course we an' our bosses never did see that the way to what they call a higher standard of livin' is by pick-a-backin' over each others' backs 'till we get there. I suppose Doomsday will find me an' my mug boss in a pair of cow spanking denims up to our eyes in mud holdin' up the standard of livin' in New Zealand like a pair of bloomin' atla-asses."

■ "Which reminds me, George, that I must get back and uphold this standard by taking the family out to a handround tea," I interjected. "Well, so long, then," said George. "An' when you're handin' round the teacups think of mo stickin' the bloomiu' cups on old Daisy. An' just ab.out the time you're wonderin' how much longer the sermon will last, I'll be lioein' into a solid knife an' fork supper."