A MINIMUM WAGE FOR COUNTRY WORKERS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CVI, Issue 12570, 3 August 1901, Page 4

A MINIMUM WAGE FOR COUNTRY WORKERS.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—There has been a good many letters in your columns lately oh the subject oi the*cost of living, and a good many of your correspondents make out a very hard straggle for the poor fellow with'a wage of £3 per week, who never has to camp out or find any tools and camp equipment. If life is burdensome for men of that c.ass in. a -city like Christchurch, with am available food supply second to no- city that ever I heard of,, what must life be for soma of the jobbing country, casual workers, who work intermittently for a miserable jwage of. five shillings a day or a few shillings a week and found, and -find their own tents and tools? Surely in these progressive days the Government could hardly refuse to fix a minimum wage for them without Insisting that they must form a Union, which io hardly possible for t-lio agricultural labourer, for the, simple reason that the movers would always be marked men that would get the.sack as intolerable meddlesome humbugs. And yet somebody must move. ,Afc the last'gcneral -election you expressed yourself astonished at the defeat of an able man like Mr 'Montgomery. I know all his many qualifications as well as yourself, and yet I voted against him, and I will tell you why. Among a series of questions I put ■to him there was one -that was to-decide whether he should have my vote that I have repeatedly put to candidates for years past. I asked would he endeavour to get a minimum wage fixed for an adult agricultural worker a-tjthe equivalent of 30s per week, that would Be £1 per week and found for single men, or where a married man is ■employed, and a house, garden -and the grazing of a cow allowed, some reasonable deduction of wage to be allowed for them. I consider that any farmer who could -not turn labour to profitable account at that price docs not know the rudiments of farming, -and any labo'urer not worth' it would be a nuisance anywhere-. But Mr Montgomery said it would not be possible to fix a minimum -wage on that basis. Mr Rhodes said it was a reasonable demand, and he -got my vote, and I hope that Mr Rhodes or some other member will move in the matter. There is a law -on the Statute Book which fixes the charge for legal advice at 6s Bd, or three yeses or noes for £l. Sometimes they are -worth it, sometimes not; but as the country could better spare its lawyers than- its country workers, it is not much to ask that the agricultural workers should also have a law, on the Statute Book giving them a minimum wag© of £1 10s per week. A farmer could always discharge a worthless labourer, and .a good labourer would nob be bound to accept the minimum wage, and there would be nothing to prevent a small farmer from engaging a boy or a youth, with a wag© between boy and man, and there would bo -nothing; toiipreyent a farmer doing-bis own- work.-

As a working main, myself, I have always had the best that was gbing;. Personally* I have nothing to complain! of, but through); your paper I am. kept informed of what - ig going on around-me, and New Zealand OB' any other country cannot prosper if thd; country workers do- not thrive, and for tha good of Now Zealand all country workers • should -be able -to marry. But no married man could possibly rear a family on,,themiserable pittance that a single man will work for when he is hard up, so it is time the Government gave earnest attention- to the condition of the country worker, after having passed so many beneficent measure;* for the.worker in the town. —I am, etc., F. GREAD., Little River, July 29, 1901.