LABOUR ON FARMS

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXVIII, Issue 13026, 3 May 1940, Page 8

LABOUR ON FARMS

SCHEME 4B MEN

AVERAGING £1 PER DAY

The Hon P. C, Web y b, Minister of Labour, has been outlining his proposal to utilise unemployed labour on ridding New Zealand of rabbits, particularly in Canterbury, Otago, and Southland, where thousands of acres of land cannot be made productive to even at least fair capacity until the rabbit pest is controlled and exterminated. Mr Webb said, a first essential was for the rabbit control boards to consider details of a practicable scheme, and he said the chairman of a rabbit board at Fairlie had assured him that if the pest could be exterminated the high country near Fairlie could carry an additional 30,000 sheep. As a practical man with much experience in keeping rabbits off his own property, the chairman was convinced that unless it was taken up on a national scale the effort to destroy the rabbit nuisance would be futile.

Discussing assistance to farmers, Mr Webb said 4000 men from scheme No 13 and public works were now employed on farms under Scheme 48, providing for the Government paying 75 per cent of the wages costs. The work was" carried out under a strict system, and the men had averaged £ 1 a day. Close on 2000 jobs were now under review, and thousands of acres which were wilderness before were now producing grass and carrying stock.

The Minister said instances could be given where the carrying capacity of farms had been doubled as a result of the assistance given. He knew of no case of a farmer being refused financial accommodation by the State or private institutions when he could show that the expenditure was warranted, and that the security was sound.

“When the war began we were budgeting to employ 10,000 seasonal workers for the winter months on clearing, draining, and sub-dividing land,” said Mr Webb. . “I know of no period in New Zealand’s history when such assistance was granted, and, as’ the scheme becomes more widely known the appreciation of farmers is manifested by their eagerness to avail themselves of this class of labour.”