THE FARM LABOURERS DISPUTE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXIX, Issue 14681, 12 May 1908, Page 5

THE FARM LABOURERS DISPUTE.

MR THORN’S SUMMING UP.

Yesterday before the Conciliation Board Mr Thorn continued his summing up on behalf of the workers in the farm labourers’ dispute. The Board sat in the Provincial Council Chambers.

In oponing Mr Thorn said in regard to the accommodation supplied to farm labourers that he had emphasised this by a quotation from Mr Jackson’s crossexamination, w'hicli corroborated Mr Kennedy’s statements. Reference had also been made to the various visits of inspection by the Board. It had been said that the Union had had the same opportunities of taking the Board to the places termed undesirable. He asked the Board whether any sane man could say honestly that this was true. Could the Union, for example, write to Mr Threlkeld and say: “Dear Mr Threlkeld, —The accommodation on your place is disgraceful, and we want to prove it to the Board. Will you kindly let us know when we can come and inspect it?—Yours truly, Thorr and Kennedy.” What kind of a reply would they receive? Of the places the Board did visit, and they were stations, not farms, the owners had been previously aware of the visit. The only place to which a surprise visit was paid was St Leonard’s. Here, as Mr Jonos said, “the conditions were not just as one wanted at the moment.’ Indeed they were so bad that the only reason Mr Jones could suggest was that the cook was drunk. Mr Jones: That was a fact.

Mr. Thorn: It was not in evidence. Continuing, Mr Thorn said that whether or not the cook was drunk was beside the point. His drunkenness was not an excuse for the condition of things seen at St Leonard’s. It coulu not account for the forms having no backs, and the general state of dirt and discomfort in which the men had to live. The social room was bare and dingy and badly furnished. Was it any reason for crying out against the demands of the men when these were all the attractions offered to the general farm labourer ? It was a remarkable fact that whenever the employer was discovered in any delinquency he saic it was the cook’s fault. Mr Kennedy • evidence was corroborated in regard to the condition of Tbrelkeld’s Station by the evidenco of Loveday, a farmer fwitness, who said that the men had complained. If Mr Kennedy’s evidence was false the employers had had every opportunity to call Mr Threlkeld to rebut it. That this was not done must prove that the place and food were cl such a character to justify the complaint. Mr Thorn went on to quote from the evidence of Amor, Paterson, Sheehan and Langdon in regard to the harvest at Cameron’s. Continuing in regard to the class of rebutting evidence called by the farmers, Mr 1 horn said that whenever a definite and wellsubstantiated charge of bad toed was made the station holders and managers, who really knew nothing about the conditions at any particular time, wore coolly trotted out and made to report, parrot-fashion, a list of articles in which flour, sugar, jam and golden syrup always figured most profusely. He contended that this was not evidence at all. How much value could be attached to it in Mr Camerons case micdit be judged inferentially by bis indignant denial that the harvesters had to carry their knives, forks mugs, although there was the evidence of many men on the point. Mr Jones had made a charge against Mr Grice that ho pa lived in dirt for four weeks and lour days, but the evidence showed that this was absolutely untrue, and that Mi Macfarlane’s place was in a filthy condition when Grice went thcro, and that he made several improvements as tar as he could. The principal causes of complaint about the fco<l until 2 1 Grice eo far as the alleged scaivation diet was concerned were set out in the official letter of instructions given by Mrs Macfarlane to Mr Grice on his first taking office: Mr Macfarlane allows each man l£lb of sugar per week, and I give the. rations out every fortnight. Each man always lias - 4 m of tea" Will you send bread twice a week? Of course at harvest the men require more sugar, and I a m sending 101 b extra.” This was on February 18, 1908. The records supplied by Mr Macfarlane of the amount of sugar sent down to Mr Grice amply bore out the letter of instructions; and that during the time the 361 b of sugar was sent it- worked out at 141 b per man per wee'-' Mr Macfarlane’s defence consisted in stating that eleven days before Grice went to Coldstream 361 b of sugar was sent down for the use of permanent hands and harvesters, and that a day or two after Grice left more sugar was sent down. Even if these were facts they did not affect Grice’s evidence. The Board would not take so muen notice of the subsequent cook s evidence as they would of the fact that he was the ninth cook in twelve months. He wished to enter a vigorous protest against owners and managers being permitted to shelve the responsibility of bad food on to the shoulders of the cook It had been reiterated that it the diet was not no varied or so wholesome as it might have been, or that if vegetables were, seldom or never srnn, the fault lav with the cook. Even if this were true the responsibility of engaging a lazy and incompetent cook must lie with the manager. In many oases however, the fault was not with the cook at all. He was engaged merely to prepare the food after it was delivered at the cookhouse One would think from some of the evidence that the cook, when not cooking, should be out foraging for chickens or turnips, and so on, in neighbouring farms. In matters like this’the farm workers were in a special sense at the mercy of their employers and, while many employers furnished excellent food and accommodation, the instances he had quoted to the contrary demonstrated the need for the regulation and improvement of the conditions of the agricultural labourers of Canterbury. As showing the radical need for improvement in the wage-earning conditions of farm work, he quoted from the evidence of Mr George Sheat before the Labour Bills Committee of the House on the Agricultural Labourers’ Accommodation Bill to show that a very great number of good farm labourers were leaving the country to go navvying or, the railways and to find other jobs in the towns. This, he claimed, proved absolutely the Union’s contention that if the farmer wished to retain their services he would have to make their conditions approximate more closely to the conditions’on the railway works and in the towns; and he could only do that by giving them bettor accommodation and a little more leisure, and payment commensurate with their work. Another reason for an award was the rise in the cost of living. Several lists bad been put in, but the most valuable was that of Amor, a comparison of the price of household stores now and fourteen years ago. That showed a

msiderable rise in practically all household stores, and no discrimination had been made in selecting them. Oil 30s a week Amor bad to live and maintain his wife and four children. Mr L’liorn instanced the case of A. I. Hales, day labourer, who received 6s a day, and had to keep his mother, younger brother and sister. His rent had averaged 8s a week, and his average weekly wage was 30s. His last three month’s wages were £6 12s 6d, £4 4s, and £3 odd. Mr Jones had endeavoured to show that Gordon had been it work only thirty weeks and idle for the rest owing to incompetence, file man had been ill, and bad bad to ,ay from £l2 to £l4 for medical attendance for his wife. For the rest he .ad worked on two acres and a half .1’ his own when other work was not .vuilable By showing the existence i dissatisfaction, the need for protecion of farmers’ sons, and the need for nprovement in the general conditions e had proved, Mr Thorn continued, at only tho desirability, but the ab.flute necessity of an award; but peril ps tho strongest reason was funush- .! by o comparison of the number of tarried and unmarried men who had ivan evidence. From that it was

oar that a large number of men were liable to make homes for themselves nil late in life. Of sixteen ploughlen called by tho Union, only two were tarried, although many of them were

.or twenty-five years of age. Of the igiiteen ploughmen called by the- bailors, three only v.o:e married, most i' them being over twenty-five years, n,d even forty years. Mr James Hay :ad su’d that the enormous majority i farm labourers of his acquaintance ere single men and young man. No no clso could afford to work for the armors, .and yet the farmers bragged bout the savings of tho men. The

act that they did save the sums quot'd was a national loss, for it was of

'• I benefit if the finest specimens of n.a nhood were turned into workers iiul savers, instead of husbands and .athers. Turning to the question of ho financial ability of the farmers :o meet the demands of the Union, Mr rhorn said that in order to show their liability the farmers had submitted

arious cooked and uncooked balance

sheets. Mr Thorn proceeded to quote the Union’s witnesses Borland and Redfern to show what could be earned bv

very small farmer, and dealt with Mr Jones's criticism of their figures. J. ii. Farris had made a profit of £9O on eleven acres, and bis average for .everal years had been £6O. H. A. Bennett had stated that after coming from Tasmania, and while receiving £SO a year from a farmer who had 1.40 acres, he was making as much as us employer, yet he was prepared to risk his £I4OO in a farm of 182 acres at West Eyreton. The balance-sheet did not present all the facts and omitted a hundred items of expenditure and as many, doubtless, of receipts. The only way to ascertain the profits of farming was for the Government to acquire compulsorily several estates. In the cases quoted thcro was no guarantee that the land had been worked to the best advantage. Henry Inch’s bal-ance-sheet, which the chairman had characterised as absolutely rotten, showed that for 130 acres lie required £3O worth of implements. The chairman said that lie had said the balance-sheet was rotten in support of Mr Jones’s contention at the time.

Continuing, Mr Thorn said that G. Holland, who claimed to have made a profit of £BO a year, required C7OO worth of implements, and debited himself with £35 interest and £3O depreciation on them, making £OS per annum for the maintenance of implements. Where lie got tlia-£4OO for the farm and the £7OO for implements, and whether they were accrued profits from the farm Mr Holland did not say. The omission of large portions of living and household expenses, which was so often a characteristic of the balance-sheets, was enough to vitiate the reliability of them. How could it be said that the annual profit was £SO or £IOO when sometimes a dozen persons had had free lodging and clothing. Tn not one of the balance-sheets was there any mention of house rent. If a man in town paid £BOO for a house he did not claim 5 per cent or 6 per cent on this sum while occupying the house. The farmer, however, thought it was perfectly fair to debit the farm with interest and credit himself with rent, which meant that he got compensation twice for one thing. Mr Holland debited bis farm with £2OO interest, part of which was interest on the house he occupied free. The same kind of farcical figtire-chas-ing was indulged in under the head of wages. Mr Holland’s yearly man was paid £57, but no mention was made of the time the man spent digging flower gardens and rolling lawns, which were luxuries foi’ Mr Holland and his wife. Further, the whole of the servant girl’s wages of £2O were also debited to the farm, although the major portion of it was a purely household expense. He did not say that living, expenses could be really separated from farm expenses on comparatively small holdings, hut it was futile and misleading tc uroduce a bal-ance-sheet that included some household and living expenses and excluded others, and neglected to say where the money for these expense? came in. The amount given as total profit was therefore merely the residue of the profits left unspent, and if they could examine the farmers’ bank-books they would find that the statements were not even correct. Another remarkable characteristic cf farming accounts was tho miraculous and unexpected entrance of wives and other relatives with hags of gold. He did not, suggest that fanners had not received financial assistance from parents or wives, but it. was absolutely fallacious to produce balancesheets that omitted ail mention of such assistance, and whose compiler blocked all reference to it by a vague reference to the sanctity of personal and family matters. The rough balance-sheet, or, rather, profit and loss account, presented reluctantly by Mr H. E. Peryman was the only one about which there was even the semblance of rationalness. For good and sufficient reasons, doubtless, the accountant who festerfathered it was not produced, and the Board had to rely on more or less ac-curately-remembered details by Mr Peryman. Ho had said that he kept his accounts not to show how he stood, but hew the different departments of the business were paying. His financial position be gathered from his bankbook, but neediest to say, the Board was not permitted to gather anything from that source. The balance-sheet, he had said, was net properly drawn up at all, but it was brought to allow that, be bad made a profit in the year of some £3OO only o;i 1000 acres upon which he and bis four sons worked without wages, and that therefore farming was by no means a bighly-profitnble occupation. The real fact was that the amount of £3OO was net profit, or tho residue of profit left unspent after Mr Peryman and his ©one had drawn a certain amount and obtained certain advantages a long way more than equivalent to current wages. Mr Peryman, had admitted that he merely estimated —he should have said “guessed”—the amount of depreciation, and had supplied a list showing the value of machines, implements, and so', on at September 30, 1906, at £B9O. On Sep-

tember 30, 1907, ho had written them down £145, or 16j per cent, which meant that they would have to be renewed every six vearg if the percentage was correct. Air Peryman, however, said that he would not have to renew every six years, and that the plant was certainly worth more than its valuation on his books, his idea being to get to a bedrock price, in those circumstances, neither the valuation nor the depreciation could be regarded seriously. If the valuation was not correct, and Air Peryman said it was not, every , year he omitted to take cognisance of a certain amount of accumulated profits. If the depreciation was too high, and Air Peryman said it was, every year ho had omitted a certain amount of profit, wrongfully charged to depreciation. Personally no outsider had any right to criticise that over-cautious method, but regarded judicially, the figures were absolutely fallacious, and misrepresented the facts in regard to the profitmaking capacity of the farm. He did not charge Air Peryman with wilful misrepresentation, for his attitude towards the document which he described as a rough draft ,bad been wholly apologetic. He had said that 5 per cent interest was allowed on the capital value of land, but on what amount was immaterial. The balance-sheet showed nothing for appreciation in the value of land, and Air Pervman had said that he would put it to the credit of the property account. There was no arguing, however, with a mail that left out appreciation of land and put in depreciation of implements. The personal and living expenses of two households and part of a third were included in tlie working expenses of two farms, and corresponding credit was not given. They were included in ail amount for £420, which even included church subscriptions. The household expenses included flour, oatmeal, milk, meat and

vegetables. The sons got no wages, but when they wanted clothes or anything else they went to the store and charged it to the general account. Altogether, the living of from ten to twelve persons was charged against the farm. He himself had calculated that the the wage-earners amounted to £577, and deducting £156 for food, there was left a .sum of £421, the very amount debited as charges. How, then, could Air Peryman contend that -he and his sons would be better of! at current , wages. He bad occupied an eight-room-ed house with all conveniences, but- the balance-sheet said nothing about it. In. addition to all household and living expenses, food bills and personal expenses, the profits of the farm were also depleted to purchase a buggy, a gig and some bicycles, on which depreciation was allowed at 164 per cent. A man. might easily make a profit of £SOOO and yet by such means be able to furnish a balance-sheet- showing barely £SO profit. The only way to estimate Air Peryman’s profits fairly from his figures was to say that the farm fed, housed and clothed from ten to twelve persons, kept them in vehicles, church subscriptions and so forth, provided thorn with new machinery and. at the end _of the year gave them £3OO as the residue of the profits they had not spent. He claimed that the balance-sheets, and particularly the last- one, which, was the only one that could be called a balancesheet, had been conclusively proved to bo totallv valueless. At this .stage the Court adjourned until the following day.