SIXTEEN HOURS A DAY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19138, 2 October 1925, Page 9

SIXTEEN HOURS A DAY.

Sir,—One cannot let a pronouncement from such a well-balanced mind as thai of Mr. Poynton, S.M., go unnoticed. On September 16 Mr. Poynton remarked, "I cannot biilieve that anybody in this coitntry works .from seven in tie morning till eleven at night. That is going back to the old days." Now from «aven to eleven is 16 hours right enough and probably few do these particular hoars; but from 4 a.m. to 7 p.m. ia 15 hours and that is unfortunately the lot of many ol onr dairy farmers to-day. Before the slump many dairy farmers were employing labour or letting small contracts and thereby were able to make soma break in the middle of the day for personal rest between milkings, "tans shortening! tha hours to 11 or 12. Under present,' conditions they are dependent on their own toil plus what their wives can give them and the interim between milkings is fully occupied with general farm woris, so their day is 15 hours and, as Mr. Poynton says, "it is going back to the old days." There can be but one result. This dull grind pi us the worry of insufficient finance is making a fine crop of prematurely aged rural men and women and our rural men and women aju New Zealand's chief asset If 16 hoars a day for a bus driver horrifies Mr. Poynton {although he does not credit it), surely 15 hours a day of actual manual work" as done by our cow-eoekies, would arouse his indignation (or that of any sane person), did he but realise it. If Mr. Poynton or any other humanitarian social economist, or reform f-.r, wishes for some details of rural life, I shall be ready (I cannot say glad) to oblige ad infinitum, Fan*. C. S. Lawsoh. Organiser, Farmers' Union,

Waikato.