THE NEED FOR IMMIGRATION.

Otago Witness, Issue 3040, 19 June 1912, Page 14

THE NEED FOR IMMIGRATION.

The-question. of solving the problem of supplying adequate labour to the warehouse and farm is becoming very acnte and pressing all over the Dominion, and will never be decided by assenting or refusing' to assent to the introduction of another 50 lads. Reports come in from north and south that cropping areas are ( being restricted, and that crops in some | places are still in the fields owing to the difficulty of getting any kind of labour to do the work. Farmers are shying clear of any crop which involves labour, and are sowing down greatly increased areas to grass, so as to manage with the least possible amount of labour. In many departments of industry in the city the same complaint is made; factory operators are not to be had. Orders have to be thrown aside from the sheer inability of the manufacturers to execute them, and wherever any fabric can be imported instead of made the cheap labour of other countries is being resorted to. There is also a perennial dearth of domestic servants, both in town and country, and a judge of , Hie Supreme Court recognises the dim-1 culty in securing girls. Mr Justice Edwards, while summing up in a divorce case at the Auckland Supreme Court last week, said: "An excellent cook, or even an indifferent cook, has very little difficulty in obtaining a situation in Auckland or its vicinity." At a later period his Honor remarked : "There never has been any time within the last 10 years when a mother or her daughter could not obtain a good situation at a Tespectable place." And his Honor might have added that the health of large numbers of ladies was suffering in consequence. In this connection matters are getting worse instead of better, and girls are not imported because a few of them might go into the factories. There is any amount of work going •-begging in the farm at what in other countries would be regarded as high wages, and no men to take it up. The cost of living does not affect such labour as that which is supplied by the farmer. The position is rapidly assuming a serious aspect, as wages in the city have been forced up to such a height that boys will not remain on the farm, and milking cannot be overtaken. The importance of keeping the young meil on. the land cannot be over-estimated. They are allured by what they regard as the high of the town, and leave the farm without counting the cost. A knowledge of farm work or of fanning cannot be communicated except by contact with the farmer, and all his skilled ploughmen and stockmen. One season follows another so rapidly, and just as rapidly the work so completely changes that it takes a lad some years to become efficient in his work and of material assistance to his employer. Hence the boy who is not brought up on the farm is very little use to the farmer for a long time, and that position should be admitted and a wage commensurate with his ability to help allotted to him. • Work on the farm cannot be taught except by actually taking part in it. True farming instincts can only be acquired "in early years, and all the hysterics about children ruining their health in the byre is doing the Dominion a lot of harm. Those to the manner born feel no degradation in "mucking out a pigsty," or in any of the less attractive jobs of the farm. The true-bred farmer's lad takes these things as matters of every-day occurrence, which in turn have to be done as the need for them arises. The sort of labour available for farmers at present turns up its nose a t such work. It is not farm labour at all, and never shakes off the feeling that such work is beneath its dignity. The unrest and unsettled conditions resulting from the knowledge that labour will be difficult to obtain after growing a crop is causing the farmer much foreboding and anxiety, which does the Dominion no good. The leading industry and many others in the country are crving out for adequate labour to enable them to progress as they should. An octopus seems to have got its feelers, round the limbs of the Dominion, which our legislators either decline to control or are unable to do so, and is slowly but surely attempting to strangle it, irrespective of any other consideration but a selfish one. But a warning may be given them. There were two commodities that the British public bad to do with reduced auantities of this last year—viz., milk and coal, on account of the strike; and it came as rather a surprise after the strike was over that there was not a tremendous demand for house coal or milk. The explanation in both cases was the same—the people had learned to do without them. It would be the wune with labour as with these commodities: enhanced prices will mean reduced demand, and having discovered that they can manage to do with the less quantity perforce, the farmers will not readily go back to old conditions even if labour is cheaper.