SHORTAGE OF FARM LABOUR

Otago Witness, Issue 3183, 17 March 1915, Page 61

SHORTAGE OF FARM LABOUR

WOMEN REFUSE TO WORK. < LONDON, March 12. Sir H. Rider Haggard, in the course of a letter to The Times, says that if the cost of farm labour increases he will be obliged to dispose of his dairy farm. The cost of labour, he says, is an economic question of the first importance. English women will not return to the old habit of farm work except under stress of actual want. With few exceptions the wives and daughters of small holders help their menfolk, and occasionally the wife of the better class farmer will assist, but the daughters won’t. Personally he does not favour the employment of women, except in the dairy and the tending of poultry. Young women are scarce in the rural districts. Most o' them can marry, and the rest go to the towns, and the men follow, causing depopulation. The colonies desire women between 18 and 30 years of age who are prepared to work till they are married to young men who have been reared on the land. These classes in Great Britain are almost exhausted, and this constitutes a grave menace to the Empire. We are trying to hold nearly a quarter of the earth with about 60,000,000 Anglo-Saxons, and the task is as much as we can do. If this number shrinks it will scon be more than we can do. He suggests an immediate competent investigation into the whole land problem.