FARM WAGES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22487, 3 August 1936, Page 12

FARM WAGES

Sir, —I have boon waiting to see if nnyonc would answer "Reflex" and others who have boon writing letters showing how they are going to be ruined when they have to pay a decent wage to the men and boys who work for them. What 1 cannot understand is how '"Reflex" has to work 80 hours a week with only 40 eows to milk and look after with a man to help him. His cost of £25 for running his milking plant is fully £lO too much for <lO cows; also his manure bill of £6O is too much. Ha puts his income down as £4OO. If the Government pays Is 2d a pound for butterfat. this means that his cows are averaging less than 2001b. of butterfat. His £3O for pigs and calves is also a very poor return from the skim milk from 40 cows. Farmers are complaining they cannot get men, but have they any right to complain when they offer the low wages of 2.55, .30s and 35s a week? Now that the Government has fixed a price, can you blame men who have worked all the season and then been put off for two or three months in the winter not wanting to go back to the farm work? I do not it I must work 80 hours a week. If the Government lixes the price of butter-fat at Is 2d a pound, a farmer should be able to pay the following scale: —For a 40-cow farm, a man shoiild receive £2 per week and found, with a pood, clean room and bed and good food. On Saturdays ho should not have to work in the afternoon. On Sundays and holidays as soon as milking and feeding out are completed he should be free till milking time at night. Then should be arranged throe weeks on full pay everv 12 months. During ha.v-making ho should be paid 10s a day over and above his wage. If the farmer and one mail milk more than 40 cows, for every two cows the man should got 2s per Meek extra. C. Kdwakds. Ohacawai.