FARMERS AND SEAMEN

Grey River Argus, 12 May 1931, Page 6

FARMERS AND SEAMEN

I — i j (From the “Seamens’ Journal” 4th. | May, 1931.) It may seem strange to mention i farmers and seamen together, but a close inspection of the position will i show that the real working farmer, as | apart from the man who farms the j farmer, have more in common than ap- , pears at first glance. The seaman | works to produce dividends, in New Zealand, mostly for Lord Inchcape and other gentlemen in Britain, whilst the farmer works to pay interest to the , |same kind of gentry, to the folk who | • draw the interest on the mortgages — I (the banks, stock and loan companies. I In every industrial dispute the money- ‘ ed interests have always been able to | mislead the farmers and their sons to i come to the cities to protect the inter- | ests of the people who live on their j ■ backs. As “Specials” and “free I ) labourers,” they seek to coerce the \ wage-workers into acceptance of the ( employers’ terms. In 1913 we saw the organisation of the country workers and farmers as the “BLACK. HUNDREDS” for the shipping, min- I ing and stevedoring companies. With ; the help of the farmers’ batons. Mas- , soy and the profiteers were able to ' ride rough-shod over the workers of the Dominion. Yet the only hope of the working farmer lies in unity with • the wage-workers. They are his chief ; home customer, and the only class that . j with his co-operation can give him re-' lief. The farmers are having a baj time, but that is not our fault, neither : do we benefit by it. When one takes a survey of the fall in the wholesale prices of agricultural products and the ’ fall in the retail prices, it will show ' that whilst the farmer has been paid I less, the city worker has not received i any advantage. The maintainance of I high price levels for the ultimate consumer, helps to prolong the present, crisis. Farmers, in particular, get very little for their produce, whilst in the i i tow n folk have to pay almost as much | as 1 formerly. Wages have been reduced | and threatened with reductions great- ! er than the cost of living has fallen, and this will worsen things for the I farmer. Low wages in England has meant- diminished demand for New ; Zealand produce; the British workers, I owing to a reduction in their wages and unemployment, cannot buy butter, j j Lower wages in New Zealand mea'ns a ; further shrinkage in the demand for farmers' produce. We workers! are not responsible for the farmers’ j hardships, and we do not want them to visit their spleen on us. D. T. Camp- • bell, the well known “biggest farm- < I er” in the United States, who was re-1 • ferred to recently in the press of New Zealand, writes as follows: — “Two million farmers have given • up their homesteads since 1920, and' the prepent position, of the small farmer i s worse than ever before. He gets ’ about 80 cents for GO lbs of wheat. The . j towns man, meanwhile, has still to | pay 10 cents for a pound of bread. 1 The farmer gets 8 or 9 cents for a lb. i of pork, whereas the consumer has to pay 50 cents for a pound of ham. The ' farmer gets two to three dollars for ' a barrel of apples which is resold I | for 10 to 15 dollars.”—“Now York 1 ' Times,” October 19, 1930. I j This is the position in New Zealand ’ also, but it is not the workers that . make it. We are threatened with a' reduction of wages. In the event of | I a dispute between the transport work- ’ ers and the shipping and stevedoring companies, the farmers as a third party come into the picture. We have |no quarrel with the producer s of this Dominion, who, i n the main, are ex- • ploited in a similar fashion to us. We i are not responsible for the crisis I through which agriculture is passing. ■ We do not wish to injure the farmer ’ who works for his living. But we do not want him to hurt us by coming to the aid of the people who live on him as well as us. It should not be beyond the brain s of the working farm- { ers and wage workers to come to an : understanding in this matter that would beneficial to both. We believe that an understanding can be arrived at between the. actual working farmers and the wage workers. It must be arrived at, for the workling farmers cannot get out of the swamp they arc in unless the vast majority of the wage workers assist I them. Both of us want to get rid of the burden s placed on our backs by (those, who “toil not, neither do they spin,” but, who, in many instances living thousands of miles away from 1 the land and people who produce the ■ wealth, sock to place on us the full weight of their own failure to organise ’ economic life. I Interest, rent and dividends, those ’ values created by working farmer and J wage worker for which they are not ' paid, are the items that hit us most. I Wages hardly enter the matter. In ’ Wellington a wage worker has to pay )about £2/10/- a week for a house of five rooms. When we are able to cut dowji rents, and the farmer his interest, and wipe out the middie-man’s profits, then both working farmer and wage worker can stand a chance to get a living from their toil. Wage workers and farmers together can control this Dominion both politically and economically. And while we know that we cannot control the world’s markets from here, we can see that the 1 ( farmer has a fair share of the nationI al income that he has helped to pro- 1 i duce, of -which he is robbed of so - much. The alliance of worker s and ; working farmers has saved the people ’ in the country one-sixth of the earth’s 1 * surface, it can save this Dominion al-1 so. Workers and working farmers co- i operate. Unite against the common foe.