AGRICULTURAL AND PASTORAL WORKERS' COLUMN.

Otago Witness, Issue 2695, 8 November 1905, Page 25

AGRICULTURAL AND PASTORAL WORKERS' COLUMN.

By Steve Bobeham. NOTES AND GENERAL INFORMATION. With the shearing season again upon us, and large areas of turnips and potatoes going undei cultivation, .workers in the country districts may expect to be fully employed at the different farm and station work from this on till the completion of the- threshing season, after which, if the Government promises are reliable, we may anticipate having plenty of work for the next 12 or 18 months. So far the shearing has not commenced on • more than two or three stations in Otago. The Messrs Begg Bros., of Hillend, were to have made a start on the 4th insL, but owing to the weather a start with the •work was not made on that date. The roll, however, was called, and the writer has reason to believe that a- full board turned up at the roll-call. The price paid at this and two other stations starting, or just on the point of starting, south of Dunedin this season is 15s per 100, the price

fixed by the award oi the Arbitration Court. A number of men — shearers and shed hands — left Dunedin and suburbs on Monday last to fill engagements in North Otago, where the price thi3 year will be 16s 8d per 100, as stated in this column some months back. 1 learn on good authority that a gentleman in Dunedin requires several shearers . to^ go to some of the islands adjacent to Kew Zealand; but as he is only offering 15s per 100, he has not been able to get men to leave our shores for that price. Personally, I do not think he wilL be able to get men under 16s Bd, ;f he succeeds in getting them even at that figure. So tar no shearers have arrived from the Commonwealth. Of ourse, as . a rule, we cannot expect many to leave the other «ide,till after the Melbourne Cup has been run, and this year it might be as well for me to again remind squatters and men that very few shearers will come to NewZealand this season. The large increase in the flocks, both out back 'and in the front,- together with the" delay in cutting out, weather conditions, etc., will keep the men too long in the front sheds to^enable them to get over Tiere in anything. like time to make, a cheque .worth travelling so far- to get. — -I learn that the Canterbury Shearers and Employers' Unions have, after a long conference, arrived at an amicable settlement of theii differences'. It will be remembered that the Shearers' Union demanded an increase- oi pay from 16s _ 8d to 20s per 100. "When the new agreement is made public — which it may be before this is in print — it will be seen that the price agreed upon is not more than 17s per 100, with perhaps some concession on our par* in that puzzle of a jdagging clause in the old agreement. -• It is stated — and, I believe, with a certain amount of truth— that the Otago Shearers' Union is about to amalgamate with Canterbury, after which the combined unions 1 will endeavour to > bring about a uniform agreement as to price, etc., throughout Marlborough. Nelson, Canterbury, Otago, and Southland. This is, to my mind, what should "be done. There is not sufficient reason why the squatters in the northern provinces should pay more for shearing .their Hocks than the Otasjo and Southland squatters do. And another objection to the unions remaining separate is that an Otago shearer going in to Canterbury for shearing is on principle bound to pay in to the northern un:on, notwithstanding he is already a member of the Otago Union. By the taste of the weather w© have been getting of late, the writer looks forward to the coming shearing season with a considerable amount of fear that our old friend, . .the wet-sheep question, will bob up again as fresh as a daisy, with the result, /no doubt, that the aid of some of bur S.M.s will be appealed to -to say whether the sheep are wet or dry at e the expense of either the t squatter or the shearer] or both. For myself, Ido not, and never did; consider ' myself a judge of whether sheep are wet or dry : but- I do consider that I am capable of judging a dry pair of moles from wet ones, and 1 consider it is , mv right, and my right only, to say whether I will or' will not shear sheep clothed in a pair of wet moles. Were squatters <to say to their shearers when the wet-sheep question crops 'ip. "Well, men, let us endeavour to " avoid ocming to blows over this question. So far as I am concerned the sheep are dry enough for me. However, if any man amongst you considers them unsafe to his health to go on shearing he may go to the hut, and start again v.hen he thinks the "sheep are dry enough for him. to shear." This has been the method of dealing with the wet-sheep question practised by a squatter for whom the writer has shorn for a number of years, and that squatter has never had any trouble _ over the wetsheep business. To my mind, the cause of trouble arising over this question _is entirely due to the fact that men are inclined to believe, and with good reason, that were they to go to the hui because they thought sheep to wet to shear in ones and twos, they would get the "bullet," and consequently the first thinpr the first ■shearer discovering she&v wet does is to try to sret the crowd of the same opinion as he him=elf is — this, of course, to protect the sprsad of his own "bluey," or in the ever.i of the boss turning rusty the rolling ut> of every shearer's "bluey" on the- board. Now, as I say, all trouble could be avoided were sciuatters to give any man to understand that he would not get the "sack" for going to the hut when he considered sheep too wet to shear; of course, no shearer to leave the board without first telling the boss why he was leaving. However, let us trust that no trouble will ari?e. Why should it? Both parties should be aware, if they are not, that life is not long enough to warrant us battling over this, or, indeed, any other, question in a Magistrate's Court, to the amusement of the magistrate In particular, tf>e puMic

in general, to our own cost, and the ultimate conviction that neither of us is the authority on wet sheep, though we thought we were before the law's intervention.