DRIVEN OFF THE LAND

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 123, 26 May 1928, Page 8

DRIVEN OFF THE LAND

REPLY TO MR. SEMPLE'S CRITICISM (To the Editor.) Sir, —It is unfortunate that the Minister of Lauds in his address at the Reform League gathering on the ISth instant should have confused Mr. Robert, Semple with his friend and associatg o£ 1913, Mr. P. H. I Hickey, who, during the prolonged strike of that year raised the slogan of "to hell I with agreements." . ■ . : Writing in the "Mnoriland Worker" of the 7th February, 1913 (the paper at that time being under the editorial control of j Mr. 11. E. Holland; M.P.), Mr. Hickey said:— There has been much talk of agreements, "industrial peace," ''loyalty to , employers," and such-like phrases. Don't listen to them. Don't believe ' them, lhere can be no industrial peace in New Zealand while the capitalistic (system lasts. There can be no .talk of "Loyalty" between workers and employers. . Recognise .that every agreement entered into is not binding upon you for a single instant. No, not if it were signed I by a thousand officials and ratified by a dozen. Courts. The agreement is not sacred. . Only a fool would regard it' as such. The moment an opportunity' occurs to better your conditions,' break your agreement. Break it whenever it will pay you to do so. -', Are we Industrialists? Are we Revolutionists? If we are, let us act accordingly. If necessary, let us toss every agreement to hell. j It may be within the recollection of some of your readers/ that 1913 was the ,year in which the United Federation of Labour and the Social Democratic Party came into being as the result of the Unity Congress, of which-Mr. Hickey was the secretary, the committee consisting of Messrs. W. '£'. Young, K. Semple, IS. Trc«ear, W. T. Mills, H. Hunter, W. Belcher, H. E. Holland, P. Fraser, P. C. Webb, and W. E. Parry, one of the decisions of 'the' congress being that the Social Democratic Party in its organisation should be "allied with the Labour movement throughout the world" and "be represented iii the International Socialist Bureau and in the International Congress, the recognised headquarters of .the International Political Working-class Movement." Both tile United Federation of Labour and the Social Democratic Party have since disappeared from .the political and .social arena, their place having been taken by the New Zealand Labour Party and the Alliance .of .'Labour. It is not possible, of course, for me to say how far Mr: Semple remains in sympathy with the ideals and pplicy that were agreed upon, by the Unity Conference,' but he was certainly in sympathy and close association with Mr. Hiekey when that gentleman made Ills famous outburst with the slogan to which I have already referred. ■ Mr. M'Leod's reference to Mr. Semple was certainly unpremeditated as it was made in jocular fashion in reply to a question put by Sir John Luke as to the truth of the statement made by Mr. Semple that the Government's policy was (quoting the words used by Mr. Sera pie in his statement to you) "driving the people off the laud and thereby intensifying and aggravating the unemployment problem in the cities." That statement is bolstered up by figures covering the years. 1922-23 to 1926-27 which certainly require explanation, as they are contradictory of other figures which show the number of occupied holdings of land to have consid- I erably increased during the five-year per-] iod,' 3922-1920, and that production has materially increased. .■ ; Admittedly the number of employees on farm lands has gone down, but there is a perfectly reasonable explanation of the figures, machinery having to a very considerable extent replaced -farm workers. For instance^ the figures quoted by Mr. Semple show a decrease 'in the live-year period of 13.551 farm employees, the figures quoted including working proprietors and managers. But, asp against this, on dairy farms where there has been the greatest displacement of labour during the five-year period, where there were only 13,553 milking plants operating in 1922-23, 17,090 plants have been installed up to 1026-27, and any one with the most elementary knowledge of dairying must know that the installation o£ milking plants substantially reduces the number of hands it is necessary to employ" for milking purposes. Again, during the five-year period the number of cream separators in use on farms went up from 40,916 to 45,246, an increase of 4330. Taking the pastoral industry where, according' to the returns, there/ were 226 more persons employed in 1926-27 than in 1922-23, the number of ■shearing machine plants and stands increased in the case of plants from 5317 to 6305 and in stands from 17,394 to 19 2G9 On the agricultural side where the 1922----23 figures show the total number of employees as 18,417, with a drop to 13,373 m 192*6-27, there waa an astonishing increasein the number of agricultural tractors, which rose from 439 with a nominal horsepower of 7634 in the earlier year, to 2585, with a nominal horse-power of 39,225 m 1020-27, an increase of 2149 agricultural tractors used on farm work developing an increase of 31,591 in nominal horse-power, and this necessarily diminished the em-,1 ployment of manual labour, and I submit for the judgment of your readers thav the Government is in no cases blaniablo for the change-over from hand to motor power in the farming industry, nor should the Government he held blamable be- I cause farmers, confronted with the difficulty of obtaining dependable labour, have choseri to install motor power instead. I may point out that electrical development has also played its part in the business, the number of electrical machines, in use on farms having risen from 6356 in 1925----20 to 8436 in 1626-27. During the twelve, months under review the. . area under wheat, oats, barley, maize, peas, and beans rose by 92,655 acres. The wheat yield mii creased, by 3,335,401 bushels; oats by 881,929 bushels; barley by 296,361 bushels, maize by 67,763 bushels, and'peas and beans 'by 166,947 bushels, and there has been an all round increase in production in other directions.*—l am, etc., . ERNEST. A. JAMES.