FARM LABOUR PROBLEM

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 21991, 15 January 1937, Page 8

FARM LABOUR PROBLEM

TO THE EDITOR OF TUB PKESS. c, r There is no need for me to defend the Minister for Public Works aSTnst the attacks made on his labour policy at the meeting of the North I Canterbury executive of the New Zea-, land Farmers' Union yesterday. Mr Semple is quite capable of defending himseir I would, however, like to noint out that on the statement made bv members of the executive them-, .selves there is no general shortage of j farm labour. Mr Warren stated that -there is an unlimited supply of harvesters." and that there was "an abundance of married couples." but that -there is a definite shortage of single ploughmen and single dairy farm workers." It appears, then, that the Canterbury farmers' labour difficulty: is mainly due to their dependence on single men. I can confirm this from my own. knowledge, and I could guarantee to supply at a day's notice several reliable married farm hands, sons of farmers and capable of filling positions as farm managers, married ploughmen, cr share milkers. One young married man I know well, with two children, sober and reliable, has been trying hard for the last six months to get any kind of farm work. Last week he could have got a job if he had only one child; but a.; it was a married couple's job the second child was a bar. The difficulty is that many farmers have no accommodation for married men and their financial position in the last few years has prevented them from building. The position is now much easier and farmers who are in a reasonably sound position can get money for house-building from the State Advances Department at 4£ per cent. Moreover, the Government is willing and anxious to advance money to county councils at 3 per cent, for building workers' houses. Mr Warren knows that in his own county there is not an empty house or even a shack available for workers at the present time, and that I have been urging the Malvern County Council for some time to take advantage of the Government's offer of cheap money for housing. lam pleased to note that the council has advertised for applications for'houses, and I sincerely hope it will build accommodation for farm and other workers, and that other county councils will follow its example. The farm-labour problem will never be satisfactorily solved until the rural housing problem has been solved.— .Yours, etc.. C. MORGAN WILLIAMS. . Kaiapoi. January 14, 1937.