FARM LABOUR AND COSTS

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21961, 9 December 1936, Page 18

FARM LABOUR AND COSTS

10 IKE EDIIUJ OF THE I’RE-i» Sir.—ln answer to “Dairy Farm Boy.” I would like to bring into the limelight dozens of boys in my plight. I am 17 years of age; my father owns 26 dairy cows, which my younger brother and I help him to milk. With the high cost of manure, lime, rates, and taxes, etc., combined with the old cry that my father has bought too dear, we are kept with our noses to the grindstone from 4 a.m. till 8 p.m and for 17s 6d a week, you ask? No, not a penny, only our keep. Can anyone suggest a solution? —Yours, etc., BUCKET, NO. 1. December 8, 1936.

TO THE EDITOR OF TUB I'EESS. Sir, —Kindly allow me space to ask if there is anything being done for ploughmen on sheep farms and ordinary agricultural farms. A teamster on a dairy farm receives £2 2s 6d a week and found, and 95 per cent, of them are single men. Now lam a married ploughman with three children to keep, and I am supposed to do this on 35s a week. I can mention others who are on the same wage, and one ploughman is supposed to keep his wife and seven children on £2 5s a week. We are not as well off as the single teamster on the dairy farm, yet if we leave these jobs we shall, I understand, be refused unemployed relief of any description. I think it is only fair that we ploughmen should receive a little more wages in accordance with the wages paid to ploughmen on dairy farms. If we were to get £3 a week and found, or partly found, life would be worth while. As it is. we are miles away from a shop of any sort, and on such small wages half the money goes in travelling expenses. I know of one man at least who pays all his farm hands £3 a week and found, and if he can do that, so can others. Surely a man’s labour is worth something more than 6d an hour and in some cases less than that.—Yours, etc.. PLOUGHMAN. December 7, 1936.