The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. MONDAY, JULY 2, 1928. FARM WORKERS

Southland Times, Issue 20527, 2 July 1928, Page 6

The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. MONDAY, JULY 2, 1928. FARM WORKERS

Much is being made by the Labour Party of a so-called decrease of the number of workers on the land since 1922-23, and their argument is that the falling off discloses a drift away from the land for which the Government’s ill-treatment of the primary industries is responsible. These figures, having the virtue of originating in the official statistics, show that in 1926-27 there were 13,581 fewer workers on the land than in 1922-23, the total being made up of 5,615 males and 7,966 females. The decrease in males represents about 5 per cent, of the 1922-23 total while the latter means 20 per cent. On the face of these figures a contraction of the primary industries seems to be disclosed, but when they are examined some doubts arise as to their reliability. They deal with employees on the land, not people on the land, and in the application of the term “employee” there is sufficient latitude to make room for extraordinary discrepancies resulting from vagaries in the preparation of individual returns. This view is supported to some extent, sufficient to make caution advisable, by the fact that when the figures are broken up into the totals for the various land districts, some extraordinary differences are disclosed. For instance, the whole of the North Island in the period under review shows an increase of 245 male workers in a total of 65,000, while the South Island returns show a reduction of 5,860, lowering the total to 37,000. In the land districts of Canterbury, Otago and Southland the decreases amount to 5,240 males and 5,048 females. This means that in these three districts the male workers lost were 15 per' cent, and the females 36 per cent, of the 1922-23 totals; but the rest of the Dominion suffered a diminution of 375 males in 72,000 and 2,918 females or 12 per cent. .If these figures disclose the whole position the diminution is not general, but is largely found In Canterbury, Otago and Southland, which suggests some special circumstances to be discovered by further inquiries. In any case enough is revealed to whittle away the sweeping charge that the primary industries are being crushed, and we have in addition the fact that in the same period there has been a remarkable increase in farm machinery, while production has also gone up. These additional facts are not consistent with general agricultural degeneration. The value of pastoral production in 1925-26 was over £71,000,000, which exceeds by £9,000,000 the valuation for 1922-23, in spite of the apparent reduction in the number of farm workers. In this period dairy cOWs increased in numbers, as did sheep and lambs, and pigs: 1922-23. 1926-27. Dairy cows .. 1,248.643 1,303.225 All cattle .. 3,480,694 3,257,729 Sheep 20,420,119 23.441,808 Lambs 10,895,521 12.069,681 Pigs 400,889 520,143 The falling off in cattle is to be found in the beef cattle figures. It is to be noted that the increase in sheep and lambs is concurrent with a diminution in the number of flocks of 10,000 and over. An apparent fall in the weight of wool and frozen meat produced can be explained by the general tendency of these industries to show marked fluctuations over half-decades in the general upward movement, but at the same time there has been an advance in the weight of butter and cheese exported, with the inference that the production of these has advanced at least proportionately in the same period. These do not bear out the charge that there has been degeneration in the agricultural and pastoral industries in the period under review, and they also suggest that the Labour Party has been too hurried in making its deductions.