BRITISH FARMING CONDITIONS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21552, 25 July 1933, Page 13

BRITISH FARMING CONDITIONS

Sir, —In the course of his letter on "Monetary Systems" of the 24th, Mr. PI Earle Vaile seems to lay part of the blamo for our present difficulties regarding export of our primary products to Britain on the fact that trades unionism has been applied to agriculture there. Ho say«: "A minimum wage and fixed hours have been instituted. The natural consequence is that the British farmer can no longer compete." Now, one of the real causes which led to tho decay of British agriculture was the very low wages and deplorable conditions which applied to farm workers there right up to the time of the war. It was during the war that, in order to retain workers on the land and attract others to that work, wages and conditions began to be improved. If Mr. Vaile knew the conditions of a farm labourer's life in Britain prior to these improvements I am quite sure he would utter no word of regret that improvement had taken place, and, if he had been a farm labourer there himself, I think he would have developed into a first-rate agitator. However, I do not think the farmors in Britain as a whole regard the advent of trades unionism, or the improvement in the conditions of their workers as a bad thing, or that it had in actual fact added to their costs. In many cases their labour costs are less than they wero under the old conditions, as has been tho case in many other industries where wages and conditions have been improved following trade union activity. I am inclined to think that Mr. Vaile and many others do not fully realise the changed conditions with which Britain is now faced. She has millions of unemployed, some of whom she is endeavouring to employ in agriculture. She is importing hug&«- quantities of food, and at the same time has many thousands of acres of land capable of producing food, and as I have said millions of unemployed men. It is no new idea that Britain should pay moro attention to her own agriculture; that course has been advocated for years. The circumstances of the war and now tho depression have compelled action to be taken, and it surely ill becomes us to deplore the fact that Britain is now taking steps to make her own people not only more happy, "but also moro secure, for we must not forget that the world is not yet rid of tho possibility of war, and so long as that possibility exists Britain cannot afford to be as dependent on sea-borne food as was tho case in the past. The change niav cause some inconvenience to New Zealand, but Britain has to face the circumstances of a changed world, and we in New Zealand must do the same. Tom. Bloodwoeth.