FARM WORK & UNEMPLOYED

Evening Post, Issue 149, 20 December 1935, Page 22

FARM WORK & UNEMPLOYED

(To the Editor.) .Sir,—ln common with a'great many other young men I took farm work in preference to being kept in the camps at the expense of the Government. After working on this particular farm for over twelve months I asked for a rise ' in salary. Being in receipt of 15s per week less Is 3d in tax, leaving me the munificent sum of 13s 9d to keep myself, I did not think this too much to ask. However, the farmer thought otherwise; result, another young" man leaves-the land.

Now, Sir, comes the cream of the joke. I registered unemployed in Wellington, and was granted sustenance at 14s per week, plus the usual concessions in the quarterly levy, etc. There is only one catch in the whole thing, because I was working hard for 13s 9d per week and only became unemployed six weeks before the Christmas bonus was granted; I do not participate in its distribution. Why should men go and work on the land for such wages and buy clothes, boots, and pay 5s levy, when you can receive a bonus and more concessions as unemployed. *

I feelsure if the full facts of my case were brought before the Prime Minister or Minister of Employment, the anomalous position regarding the fetish of having to be unemployed thirteen iveeks %vould be overlooked, and I would receive the Christmas bonus. —lam, etc., ~:■:'. :' '■-■, ONE OF THK MUGS.