LABOUR AND LAND

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 26, 30 July 1940, Page 6

LABOUR AND LAND

It may be taken as fairly axiomatic that production from the land cannot be increased to meet the demands of wartime without a corresponding increase in the labour applied to the land. This truth is generally recognised not only by the farming community but by the Government. The need for labour is all the greater because military service has drawn on the rural population as much as on the towns for, its recruits. According to the annual report of the New Zealand Federation of Young Farmers' Clubs, out of a membership of over 6000 some six or seven hundred have enlisted in the fighting forces, and this proportion may be assumed as reasonably accurate for the whole body of labour normally employed on the land. Hence before there can be a net increase in the labour available for production, these gaps left by military recruitment must be filled. To illustrate what the Government is doing to meet the occasion, the Minister of Labour (Mr. Webb) stated, in an interview, that there was still a large number of experienced farm workers, awaiting engagement, including those enrolled with the State Placement Service and those at present on public works but ready for transfer to farm jobs as soon as required. It is quite possible that just now there may be an actual surplus of farm workers over and above the jobs offering, for this is the slack season on the land. Next month, however, the farming season generally will commence in earnest, and there should be ample scope for labour if it can be mobilised, distributed, and accommodated wherever needed. The problem is far more complex than military mobilisation, and this was indicated in Mr. Webb's remarks. Except for the single man with no home ties labour of any kind is not mobile, and the difficulty is accentuated with farm labour which is not standardised and differs according to districts; For instance, Mr. Webb noted that there was a marked tendency on the part of farmers to apply for young single inexperienced men whose wages could be subsidised under the No. 4F scheme. This type of worker, he said, was becoming much more difficult to provide. There are many more experienced and inexperienced married men available, as well as a surplus of single experienced men in the South Island, where the demand was not yet so great. The impression left by Mr. Webb's survey is that farmers would agree to take married men to a much greater extent than they are now doing, if only they had accommodation for couples and families on the farm. This question of accommodation has always been a serious one in rural New Zealand and still appears to be unanswered. The Government has set aside a substantial sum for rural housing partly with j this problem in view, and farmers who complain of a shortage of labour might very well study this prospec-1 tive solution to their advantage. Life on the land in this country has much to offer young people as a permanent career if they could be sure of getting at least some of the amenities and comforts of the town not incompatible with the inevitably long hours and hard work that must go to production from the soil.