FARM SLAVERY.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 4, 30 September 1907, Page 2

FARM SLAVERY.

THE CITY MAN'S NIGHTMARE. There frequently rises up a dyspeptic city man to cry aloud that slavery is practised upon the children of dairy farms by theii'_ own parents.' It is quite natural this rising up and crying; and in truth the desire of-tho city man that "whito slavery" should bo hunted down on every occasion—accentuated as that desire has been by the sweated, industrics exhibit which rcccntly closed in the Wellington Town Hall —is good and wholesomo. .Sweating, even in- tho healthy air - of tho farm, ought to bo rigidly suppressed. There is, however, little ovidenco of a widespread existence of this unparcutal attitude among the farmers of Now Zealand. . Precious Oxygen. Farm 'work is, at least; healthy, which cannot bo said of 'thoso city industries to which tho sweated indusfrios . .exhibit has directed our minds. As between; on tho one hand, a puny townsboy or girl, clothed ,'n, good raiment, and shut up for work in, a deoxydiscd atmosphere, and on tho other hand, a young rural •ragamuffin who has flesh on his ribs and' works hard in all weathers givo us the ragamuffin. The city man, of course, will bo tho fir3t to recognise the distinction in favour of country life, for lie has learned, • from tho lack of pure air, its value. It_is quite natural, therefore, ■ that lio should be anxious that his country cousins should not live in the samo sort of strenuous, dovitalising surroundings.' ECHOES FROM WAIRARAPA. On the slavery subject our special •Wairarapa correspondent writes: "A number of misguided people are continually referring to the hard work which they state is associated with the management of dairy farms. They think that -the life of a dairy farmer and his wifo and family is nothing more or less ;than drudgery, forgetful of the fact that times have changed during tho past fifteen years, when tno farmer worked for tho storekeeper and ■ sold his butter at sixpence per pound (there's no doubt that in many cases it was bad butter) and never saw the colour of his money, and at the end of tho year at settling, up- timo was still in dobt to'the storekeeper. The " Good Old Times." "It was drudgery in thoso days. Thero was the continual grind of butter-making with crude appliances, and there was no prospect of salvation. Thcro were one or two cheeso factories about that time, and in tho majority of instances cheeso was mado in tho same perfunctory manner that a man would commence to dig up a garden. Tho farmer flopped his milk into his cans and carted it to tho factory, where tho liquid was emptied into tho vats. Tho farmer then hurried back to his farm Tilth, his unwashed cans, which would frequently stand unwashed till tho next morning. Sometimes tho farmer, if he was not a particular sort of man, would carry back whey in his cans,' and with these desiderata hanging round his ncclc like a mill-stone, it is no wonder that.there was no incentive for the chccse-managcr. Thero was no quality in the cheese, and tho fanner continued to bo poor. Consequently lifo was a drudge. . Tlie New Style, " There i 3 nothing of that now. The farmer commences work early in the day, and he knows that it is not so much labour as cleanliness that is required. Tho factory pays its dividends on cleanliness, that is so far as tho farmer is concorncd. With an income of from £10 to £15 per cow per annum, and milking machines (and further profits) when tho herd increases to say forty head, the farmer knows that it pays him to stand tho inconvenienco; not drudgory. Nearly all tho Wairarapa dairy-farmers state that the lifo is an easy one, far and away moro comfortable than any trade or physical labour on the roads or in the bush. Farm slavery and child slavery are tho usual shibboleth of city critics whoso ideas on tho subject are anachronisms of the present day, conceived by t-liem from, what they read many yoars ago."