FARM LABOUR SHORTAGE.

Evening Star, Issue 22577, 19 February 1937, Page 8

FARM LABOUR SHORTAGE.

The efforts of no one strongly endowed with the prophetic instinct were required after Labour took over the reins of Government to forecast a shortage of farm workers in New Zealand. The trouble made itself apparent at a very early date after the change-over, and naturally it ha? become accentuated as the seasons for increased rural activity have advanced. Auckland farmers have had much to say on the dilemma in which they find themselves owing to the disinclination of hitherto contented farm workers to remain in their customary occupations in the face of public works inducements comprising high pay and short hours. In a way, it is quite satisfactory to know that the Government feels justified in pursuing an enterprising public works policy. But the Government, as part of its electioneering campaign, also stressed its solicitude for the welfare of the farming community, thereby drawing to itself many rural votes which, as a result of the present difficulties, may now he regarded as misplaced. It is becoming almost wearisome to have to emphasise the Dominion’s dependence on the state of its primary industries for its prosperity. Acceptable though a live public

works programme may be, it cannot be doubted b yany section of the community that consideration for primary industry must be the first thought of our legislators. Many instances have been given in the North Island of the critical conditions obtaining on dairy farms—conditions which offset any sense of stability that may have been gleaned from the payment of guaranteed prices. Stories of forced sales of portions of herds, of good cows being dried off, and of women having to toil in the milking sheds besides attending to their domestic duties are all too numerous. Child labour, too, is coming into disconcerting prominence. Legislation which brings about such a sorry state of affairs should be amended without delay.

Through a discussion which took place at yesterday’s meeting of the Otago Provincial Council of the Farmers’ Union corroboration is supplied of previous knowledge that this province has also been suffering from the shortage of farm labour. As with dairy farmers, so with others. Women and children have been busy at work in the haymaking fields and at harvesting. Farmers, not yet recovered from the lean years, find themselves unable to recompense fully-grown men with pay that will effectively compete with public works rates. Mr Waite, who has a firm grip on rural conditions generally, states that there are two things the farmers must do if a solution of the problem is to be found. They must make farm life more attractive and at the same time they must try to do without labour. “New machinery and new methods,” he said, “ would provide a way out, and, with a fuller use of them, farmers could easily devise means of doing without men.” The task of making farm work more attractive necessarily depends for its success on the individual conception of what constitutes a good home and reaonablo hours for employees. At normal times the farmer who treats his men well will be amply repaid with good service, but at the moment the matter of giving pay adequate to compete with the Public Works Department depends not so much on heart as on purse. It is doubtful, moreover, whether increased use of machinery will ever completely furnish the solution. The average dairy farmer who may be said to specialise as such is already using machinery in his shed. He is experiencing trouble in procuring men to work the machinery. In other branches of farming a limit to the use of machinery is also inevitable. As another member of ■ the Otago Provincial Council remarked, man power cannot be displaced on farms, nor, most persons will add, is it desirable that it should be. The true solution lies in the passing of time and in amended industrial legislation that will remove the difficulties which seem destined to persist until important public works undertakings approach completion. If the Labour Government does not act, and act quickly, those farmers whose votes, undoubtedly helped to put it in power may change their political mind at the next General Election.