EMPLOYEES ON FARMS

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6803, 5 January 1929, Page 12

EMPLOYEES ON FARMS

General Increase Says the New Zealand Herald: “Much capital was made during the election campaign out of the statistical returns of persons employed on farms. From the apparent reduction from 146,380 in 1923 to 132,799 in 1927, it was asserted that in four years 13,581 persons had left the land, and some critics of the Reform Government aggravated the significance of the figures by interpreting the comparison as a loss of so many thousands of settlers. These dogmatic conclusions were maintained in spite of the manifest need for examining the returns with caution, especially the extraordinary disproportion in the reduction of female employees, and of greater importance, the overwhelming evidence that during the period of apparently contracting manpower tho volume of production had increased. There was also need for consideration of the fact that the return referred to conditions 18 months previously; the statistics for 1928 demonstrate the error and the injustice of the citicism§ that were based on the previous figures. It is now shown that instead of thousands of settlers having been lost, theve were in 1928 only 1301 fewer male employees than in 1923. If tho 1927 return was correct, and there were then 5615 fewer males than in the record year, a substantial recovery was made before the latest enumeration—an increase in one year of 4,314 male employees. The statistics of female employees seem wholly inconsistent until both the other portion of tho return and with other facts. In tho last year a further reduction of 7632 appears, so that in five years the total has fallen from 38,430, to 22,832, or over 40 per cent. The only reasonable explanation of this variation is that in previous compilations many thousands of females were incorrectly Included in the individual returns. Tho popular assumption, would no doubt be that any loss in rural population would have occurred in the North Island. The returns show in the fivo years increases of 2343 male employees in dairying, 224 in pastoral farming and 343 in agricultural farming, a total gain of 2910. On the other hand, female employees are represented as having declined in numbers by 7367, equivalent to over 32 per cent. "In the South Island there has been an apparent loss of 4211 males and 5231 females chiefly in Canterbury, Otago and Southland. Tlio disproportion between the sexes is absurd in the latter ease, for a reduction of 11 per cent, in males is associated with one of 55 per cent, in female employees. Until a more reliable method of enumeration has been evolved, these statistics should be regarded with great caution; those relating to female employees are scarcely trustworthy at all. In any event, the opportunities for misinterpretation oi the statistics would be restricted by greater promptitude in their publication.”