LABOUR FOR FARMS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23227, 22 December 1938, Page 17

LABOUR FOR FARMS

SERIOUS PROBLEM SHEARERS AND MUSTERERS SOUTH ISLAND DIFFICULTY [BY TELEGRAPH —OWN CORRKSPONDENT] CHRISTCHURCH, Wednesday The shortage of shearers is becoming a serious difficulty with a number of runholders in the high country this season and, combined with the changeable and wet weather that has predominated all over the South Island for the last month to six weeks, it has become an almost insurmountable problem. A representative of the Press who visited the North Otago and Central Otago districts was told that in the Lake Pukaki district there were three sheds within 20 miles' of each other shearing with only one shearer each. A number of sheds which usually employ from four to nine shearers this year have only two and three men on the board. To add to the difficulty of the shortage of shearers another problem seems to be growing, and that is shortage of musterers. This problem is not yet acute, hut it seems that it is only a matter of time before it becomes so. For shearing, mustering and rabbiting there are 110 labour-saving machines and men are essential. All three are jobs that require several years of experience. There seem to be fewer men now in the high country who do little else but mustering, and unless a mju> is mustering continuously for six or seven months of the year he finds it difficult to break in and train pups, with the residt that dogs are becoming few and it is difficult for young men starting mustering to get enough dogs to make a start.