FARMING IS A GRAND LIFE

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14065, 11 February 1939, Page 4

FARMING IS A GRAND LIFE

THE FARMER HAS HIMSELF TO BLAME FOR THE SHORTAGE OF LABOUR (Correspondence is welcomed on interesting subjects, but we do not necessarily endorse the opinions of correspondents). (To the Editor). Sir.—Luring the last two or three years it is noticeable that the shortage of labour in becoming more acute and farmers themselves are forever asserting that the lault lies primarily in the Labour Government’s Public Works policy. Farmers have notoriously bad memories and I should like to point out to them a cause for thi s shortage of farm labour that has apparently escaped their notice. Let us hark back to the early days of the depression when the Opposition held the reins and the farmer was beginning to see that he would have to retrench somewhat if lie and his family were to retain a decent standard of living. \es, ai\d where did he start? He said to himselt: ‘•Well 1 am airaid that Tom (Lick or Harry or whoever he had working for him) will have to leave. ’ and forthwith sacked him. However, Tom had to leave and alter wandering about the farming district looking for the work he was suited to, without success eventually found his way to a town. There he found something that kept him from starving. The Government had instituted a scheme whereby he was paid so much a week for grubbing weeds off foot-paths or rounding oft street corners for a few hours a week. He had plenty of comrades on similar work and s<, many were from the country, so loafing about on the odd days off was quite pleasant unless he thought to contemplate the future. In time, however, he came to think that navvying was not such a bad game if one didn’t work too hard, and besides it was no ui=e thinking of going farming because no farmer could afford to pay him. Sometime afterwards lie heard that labour on farms was being subsidised but he only heard about, it in a. louncl-about way and no one offered him a job back on a farm. Now Tom is quite a good navvy and if lie ever looks back on the day lie left the farm with regret he merely shrugs his shoulders and says. “Well it is too late to go back to that now because I can’t see myself over owing the little farm I meant to.’’ Ho had lost the incentive; that something that lints the future with rosy possibilities, and so lio was mute content to stop where he was. _A young man can break in a farm with little capital and be happy, but an older man must see a living for himself and family from tho farm before contemplating such a break from the steady pay of the Public Works emplovee As a remedy it is. as suggested by the Ho.i. F. Laiigstone, for the farmers v educate the youth of to-dav to become land-minded. Just as a preliminary gesture, let the l farmer face up to the fact< and admit that he is bettor off with the guaranteed price that farming is a grand life and that if it was- 't for the vagaries of the weather he* wouldn’t have a thing to growl about. “HARRY.” Pahiatua February 10th. 1P.39.