THE COST OF LIVING.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CVI, Issue 12570, 3 August 1901, Page 9

THE COST OF LIVING.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—Your correspondent “Advance New Zealand” writes a good deal that should be written, but I cannot help thinking that the answers to his questions Nos. 1 and 2 have been given .very emphatically. It seems perfectly clear that if the minimum wage was fixed at £5 per week, profit, rent, and interest (no; the Government have -nationalised 1 money-lending) would be raised to- such a minimum standard as would make it just as hard to live as it is now. Can you tell mo why the Government should nob -step in, and rentprofit down to a reasonable level, in the same manner as it has done the rates of interest? Why does the Premier halt? He has tho people at his back, eagerly looking for more reforms, as they have been doing for years. Heaven knows, the people Lave been under the yoke - long enough. Now that the dawn of freedom is upon us, we cannot afford to leave any loophole whereby we may be driven back under the old sway.—l am, etc., ROIAMATA. to the Editor. Sir,—ln reply to the wail of your correspondent “Farmer,” please allow me to draw attention to bis statement as to tbe result of cultivating one hundred acres of oats and wheat! “Farmer” gives the return as oats £l2O, wheat £69. In his debit column we find the item threshing £33 5s 6d. Now, the average contract price of threshing is, finding everything, £1 per hundred .bushels, which, leaving out the shillings, gives us 5300 bushels, and as he has included railage and sacks in his debit account, we may fairly assume his oats, f.0.b., sacks included, would bring Is 4d per bushel. To make his £l2O, this would take 1800 of the 3300 bushels threshed, and we have a -balance of 1500 bushels of wheat left, which your correspondent tells us he sold for £69. He may have done so, but as be tells us be neither drinks nor -smokes, I doubt it. Another item in his debit account, ploughman’s wages and food £4O, As the crop, was only 33 bushels 1 o the acre, we may assume it is light land. To plough, harrow, drill, and roll 100 -.two/ months. Does “ Farmer" expect the ■ipnbiic to believe that he gave the ploughman £4O in food and wages for two months’ work?' Hardly. 'The'next -time “ Farmer ” sends a profit and loss account to, the newspaper, he ought first to make 'i'lmself acquainted with the current prices of labour and produce. This continual wail of the farmers has become and is simply founded on an to increase the value of their land. They are, ini fact, the most coddled community in the colony. The agricultural labourer is the worst paid workman in- the colony. There is a loud protest if it is suggested that the labour laws should reach him, and why? Not because the farmer cannot pay a higher wage, but simply because lie wants to get higher rents, and increase the value of his land. The tenant farmer invariably pays more away in rent than he does in wages. We want this order reversed. The labourer is a necessity, and deserves more money than the rent receiver who is simply a parasite, fattening on the riiisery of the labourer, ‘his wife and children. If any proof were wanting that this continuous wail is without foundation, we have it in the fact that, in spite of the low prices of produce, farmers are asking more money for their land to-day than ever they did before in the history of the colony. With lower rents, there ’is , no reason why the labourer .should not get £2 per week.—l am etc., ANTI-HUMBUG.