LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 84, 6 October 1943, Page 4

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

HZ. WORKERS

Sir,—lt would only be fair if you gave a little of your space to rebut in some degree the claims of Mr. F. P. Walsh, president of the Wellington Trades Council, to speak for the workers of the Dominion. . He certainly does not speak for thousands of dairy farmers throughout the country as the voting of the late election shows. To read his lengthy tirade one would think that the workers in the factories, mines, and on the wharves were the only ones that worked. It would be a lesson to many of these if they changed places with me for a short while—up at 4.30 a.m. wet or fine to help milk a herd of 50 cows, then breakfast to get and children to get to school —then dinner to prepare—not much time for a sleep in the afternoon for the children soon arrive, and once again to the cow-bail. My husband washes down the cow-bails, scalds the cans, and cleans the milking machines besides attending to the many things around the farm. After evening milking tea about 7 p.m., children to bed, and mending to attend to —15 hours a day, seven days, a week, and there are thousands of wives doing likewise. Not a 40-rhour week like the people Mr. Walsh speaks for, Not any rise in wages to offset the cost of living, with children's clothing up by nearly 100 per cent, and materials for the proper upkeep of the farm skyrocketing and then almost unprocurable. And who finds the money for the carrying on of the war? Surely those who produce from the land. AH our factories are greenhouse forced. We pay fancy prices for home-produced goods to keep up the high wages of Mr, Walsh's 38,000 members, but do we get any more? When the British Government gave our sheep-farmers a 15 per cent, bonus the Labour Government tried to stop them having it in cash. I have to work all these hours so that these 38,000 may have butter at Is 6d a lb and revel in high wages with two days' holiday—one for races —a week.

Considering the events during the Great War of 1914-18 one just as momentous to the people of the Empire as this one, it is strange how suddenly the Labour Government members claim to be the only ones who can carry this war to a successful conclusion.—l am, etc., DAIRY FARMER'S WIFE.