SUBSIDY PLAN

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 70, 24 March 1937, Page 14

SUBSIDY PLAN

YOUNG FARM LABOUR

LITTLE SUPPORT IN OTAGO

(By Telegraph—Press Association.)

DUNEDIN, March 23,

If the opinions expressed by several pastoralists and farmers to the "Otago Daily Times" today on the subject of the Government's wages subsidy plan for training farm labour can be regarded as representative, there will be little support forthcoming for the Minister of -Labour's (Hon. H: T. Armstrong) proposal. No one seemed to be at all impressed by the offer, and in. more than one instance it was suggested that only a few small dairy-farmers would be interested. One Central Otago settler who was questioned said he would not be prepared to take on a' ; boy, even with the subsidy, under the conditions laid down. It was impossible for a farmer to decide at the end.of one week whether a youth was worth training or not. Town-bred boys took longer than that to get their .."country legs," and. he thought it was fair to neither farmer • nor boy to ■. expect a decision in so short. a time. ■ As far as the farmer was concerned, however, if he decided after one week that he would give the boy a trial, he would lose all subsidy if he did. not keep him for four months. Most boys would need a month to become accustomed to the work, but there was no incentive to farmers to persevere with them for such a period.

Another farmer said he had decided to rely on mechanical farming, and his own family, in future so that he was not likely to be interested in the scheme, but one question had occurred to him. Did the Minister consider that at the end of four months a youth would have learnt even the rudiments of farm labouring? He was of opinion that the majority of farmers were tired to death of the farm labour problem. It was two or three years old now, and most of them -were endeavouring to do without labour wherever possible.

In several quarters the lure of public works wages was stated to be an effective deterrent. to any system of training young farm I labour. It was regarded' as. useless wasting time on young men who. would-merely make a convenience of their employers-and the Government Until they could get away to some Public Works Department contract and earn 18s to 19s a day. Farmers could never; expect to cope with such competition, and it was generally agreed that it was futile to try.

Small. dairy-farmers and orchardists are considered to be the only type of farmer who will benefit, from such a scheme.1 In fact, it was suggested that they would be.the only people interested,, and even in their case, it was considered^ that the system would be unsatisfactory ' for the reason that it would be open to abuse.

What might be regarded as a typical view of the whole question of training young men for this work was the remark of a well-known South Otago farmer, who. declared that "the only boy who is worth training and who can be expected to go through with it is the young and fortunate man who is likely at some time or another to have sufficient backing to get on the land himself. Without it you might just as well hand them all over to the Public Works Department.