MUSTERING AND SHEARING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23055, 4 December 1936, Page 8

MUSTERING AND SHEARING

10 THE EDITOR

Sir, —In reply to letters by " Onlooker" and "Bar S," in which the one accuses me of being an agitator and the other wishes to know why I do not refer to the Herbert branch of the Labour Committee and to Mr Nordmeyer, I would say that I have not had the pleasure of meeting Mr Nordmeyer nor do I know the members of the Labour Committee at Herbert, but, being associated with the Labour cause, I estimate them as being a very intelligent body of people. As to referring to Mr Nordmeyer it will take the whole of the Labour Government to keep sheep owners and men of independent means from going out where the wages are high in seasonal work, thereby doing married men with families out of work. Both shearing and mustering are governed by awards and it is necessary, therefore, to pay union tickets. How many farmers who go out to cream the milk are possessors of these tickets? The union secretary informs me that to ask these

sheep owners who go out creaming the milk to give up their jobs in favour of men who have wives and families to keep by shearing, mustering, and harvesting would be like pouring water on a duck's back. As the nom de plume suggests that " Onlooker" has plenty of time on his hands, it will be his chance to become a worker with a United Industrial Workers' ticket if his neighbours are short of men.—l am, etc., One Dog One Bone. November 30.