LABOURERS' UNION.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 12849, 6 July 1907, Page 5

LABOURERS' UNION.

*O THt KDITOB Of "THE PRESS." tiir,—Now that the Labourers' Union is getting, or at least trying to get to a great pitch, I would like to put my opinion of it in your valuable columns if you will give mc permission. I havo been a farm labourer for the last tea years, and I think I ought to know what a farm labourer wants. Then. , ought to be, no doubt, come regulation \between the farmer and his employees, with regard to wages, but the claas of men that work on farms throughout tho colony are co different in every way that it would be & very difficult matter to make any such thine. I have always been able to get plenty of work this last ten years, and a very good wage also. I joined a Union oncp during that time, but I soon found I lost both money and time by it. I have found that if a man does a fair day's work in New Zealand he can always get a good wage for it, but ithe other class of men have to form a Union to try and make it compulsory for tho farmer to pay big wages to all classes of men throughout the colony. When the would-be new rules come in vogue wo will see our Union men trying to catcha hare or some other innocent creature to eat for his dinner, as I am quite certain that farm labour will be yjf-y soarce indeed, and more than half tho farm labourers will be out of wok How is a fanner going to pay mdsi* about twenty-seven shillings and sixponce weekly ? Some men are not worth their tucker on a farm, yet they are to get twenty-seven and sixpence. "Oh would it not bo grand if they could get it," but the farmers of this colony are too shrewd to give employment to that sort of men.

With regard to giving boys seventeen shillings and sixpence weekly I think it ridiculous. Not long ago, when I was a boy, I worked for five shillings a week, and no boy is worth much more till he has had a few years' experience. But it docs not matter (accordine to the would-be rules) if a boy never saw a farm in his life before, he is to set seventeen and sixpence. How is it that at anything else you get five shillings for a stnrt, and find yourself, yet farming takes equally as much lorning ac any other means of livelihood? An ether point is be has only to work two short yoirs before he gets the top wage, twenty-seven shillings and sixpence.

Now ia th»s not absurd. How is a boy of eighteen going to do a week's work worth twenty-seven and sixJpenoe? Not only that, but he might be put alongside a good man and spoil the look of his work also. Of course sunn, scatterbrain would say ho mi.eht be as good as a man, and I daresay he would be as good, too, as come of fchoee that have to form a IJnion to mnke a living But there is no boy eighteen worth twenty-seven and sixpence. — Yours, etc., HAWARDEN MAGPIE.