LABOUR FOR FARMS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23707, 14 January 1939, Page 9

LABOUR FOR FARMS

TO THE EDITOR

Sir, —By your sub-leader in to-day’s Times you would appear to be of the opinion that a conference between the Farmers’ Union, the General Labour Union and the Government would bring about a practical solution of the farm labour problem. A conference of that sort may have tne desired effect, but to mv mind it would not. nay, could not. reach a permanent solution. As I see it. the Government has brought this state of affairs about itself without any assistance from either the farmers or the farm workers. I do not mean .that this present Government has done all the damage, previous Governments inserted the wedge., but this Government has driven it home, not, I believe, from any desire to do so, but simply because they, in their inexperience, handled the whole situation from the wrong angle. Now, Sir. no farm worker toils on farms for the love of that particular work, nor as a life-time occupation, but every young man or boy starts out on farm work with the hope of some day beitig a farmer himself, and therein lies the whole solution of the farm worker problem. I say that it is absolutely impossible for any young man off his own bat to start farming to-day and to make a success of it. At the best when h'e is 25 the utmost money he could save out of his wages is £soo—and that amount would not buy half the dead stock required on even a small farm. With a binder costing nearly £IOO. a grain drill costing about £BO, and all the other implements likewise costing an exorbitant figure, however, could he buy the farm and the live stock? Of course if he has backing he can get a start and pay interest all his life, and then a slump comes along and out he goes, broken both in body anc. in spirit. No, Sir, I say emphatically that the only solution is for the Government to make conditions so that the young farm worker can ip a reasonable time get a start on a farm of his own, where he ran be absolutely sure of making a fair living for himself and his wife and family. When this is brought about, and only then, will the farm labour problem be solved, and the increased production which the Prime Minister has been calling for be achieved.—l am. etc..

Sheep Fanner.

Clinton, January 10,