FARMERS’ TROUBLES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3085, 30 April 1913, Page 20

FARMERS’ TROUBLES.

SHORTAGE OF LABOUR. (Fbou Oue Own Cobbespondbnt.J WAIMATE, April 26. At the annual meeting of the Wairnate branch of the Farmers’ Union this afternoon the president (Mr A. Garland) referred to the acute position brought about by the shortage of farm workers and also to threats from the Shearers Federation, and advocated the technical instruction of fanners’ sons in shearing, slaughtering, etc. as the only moans of effectually combating unreasonable demands on the part of the workers and at the same time carrying the farming industry over the approaching period of very serious restriction of outputs. Personally, he did not think the threshing question would be so acute next season, as there would not be much grain to thresh. Mr Garland said the difficulty in obtaining ploughmen last year had had the effect of restricting the area for grain, and the same difficulty was presenting itself again this year in a minor degree. As soon as potato digging started numbers of ploughmen left their jobs. Oils was natural enough, and the only remedy for it was the erection of cottages on or near tho farms and the employment of married men instead of single. Under the present circumstances farmers were getting sick of the worry attached to grain growing, and were restricting their opera tions, so much so that New .Zealand would probably have to import wheat to feed her own people. This would mean another rise in the cost of living, while at the same time work would bo harder to obtain. It would also affect the implement maker® and tho men employed at those works. No doubt the aversion of tho Labour leaders to immigration was due to the mistaken idea that tho fewer men available the higher would bo the price of labour. They did not see that the result would bo to turn arable land into able proportionately to the labour available. froportionately to tho Labour available, n the meantime it was useless opening up agricultural Land for settlement when there was not enough labour available to work it. The number of applications for grazing country at recent ballots against the number for agricultural land proved the correctness of what he wa.s saying. The meeting voted £lO 10s to the Technical School Board on condition that a, shearing class be started. The Technical School lias already turned cut a score of expert young woolclassers.