AGREEMENT FOR FARM LABOURERS

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22073, 22 April 1937, Page 4

AGREEMENT FOR FARM LABOURERS

TO THB EDITOR 01 THE PRESS.

Sir,— Regarding the farm labour letters in your columns lately, which I find to have a disturbing element to Saturday's issue I noticed the sales Of several teams of horses advertised. The reasonNiven' was. that thinner was going in for a tractor.. This is a most disquieting thought. Perhaps I may ask your readers, or may l aaa, the "red/agitators," to tell me what I am going to do with my team if the proposed legislation comes in. making it necessary to send my man ott for a week every three months. Now. perhaps a specific case would convey what I mean, so here goes! ; I own a farm of between 400 and 500 acres, which statement I must qualify by saying that the farm has a blister On it. I employ a married teamster and ha»e only sufficient accommodation for him and his family. He has. as he must have, for his family's sake, cows, garden; and a pig. [His wife has her fowls. : I How will this man like having to I shift his belongings ior a week every three months to make room for another to take charge of my team? What will he do with his cows, pig, fowls, etc.? Do you think for one minute I should be able to keep him? Yet if the law says he has to have these weeks off, I fear I should have to see that he did. Yet I cannot think of letting my horses be uncared for. I have, as far as I can see, one 1 option—selling my horses and buying a tractor. If I did so, on my small area, I should not require a full time man. I could, of course, take away all his privileges, such as cows, etc.. so that he could shift easier, yet I think this would not work. The writer has employed farm labour for more than 35 years, and has stuck to horses, and incidentally, men, and naturally does not wish to be forced to mechanise. I have never employed, as far as I know, an agitator, and do not propose to suffer them now. If the Labour unions think they can handle farm labour, I imagine they will find out their mistake. Much i? said about farm labour being absorbed in the various "Semple Sanatoria," but no one need worry about that, as that is where they should be. . That class of stuff is no use on the farm. However, there is one thing we can be thankful for and that Is that the permanent farm hand is of far better type than those who agitate for him ; and he knows it; and, I may add, from what I gather, resents the intrusion.—Yours, etc., FARMER. April 20. 1937.