A RESTRICTION FEARED

Southland Times, Issue 22991, 10 September 1936, Page 6

A RESTRICTION FEARED

EMPLOYMENT ON FARMS QUESTION OF EARNING POWER (From Our Parliamentary Reporter). Wellington, September 9. The necessity of preserving a proportionate balance between farming and other industries, particularly in wages and conditions, was stressed by the Hon. Adam Hamilton, (Nat., Wallace) during the second reading debate on the Agricultural Workers’ Bill in the House of Representatives. “Any legislation which will raise the standard of workers is naturally desirable,” Mr Hamilton said, “but we have to see to it in the first place that the necessary earning power exists in industry. What the Government is doing is laying down terms and conditions without giving a thought to the vital factor of earning power.” Government members: What about the guaranteed urice? Mr Hamilton: It has yet to be proved that that gives sulficient earning power when costs are rising. The Bill generally was more acceptable than an award covering the farming industry, Mr Hamilton continued, but the Minister of Labour (the Hon. H. T. Armstrong) would not say definitely that it would free the farming industry from any attempt to bring it under an award. New Zealand had grown up with free labour on its farms. There had never been any great problems of sweated labour or bad accommodation, and the wonderful farming industry which had been developed would not have reached its present position if it had been subject to regulation and regimentation of the kind now proposed. Vagaries of Nature. “It is easy enough to regulate and standardize when one is dealing with work in a factory,” Mr Hamilton added, “but when one considers the work which is carried c.ut subject to weather conditions and the vagaries of nature, it is another question altogether.” Mr Hamilton said that it was interesting to compare the standards proposed in the present Bill with the rates laid down for agricultural workers in Great Britain under a recent agreement. Mr J. G. Barclay (Lab., Marsden): Conditions are different. Mr Hamilton: We have to compete in the same market. The rates laid down in the British agreement, Mr Hamilton continued, averaged 32/6 for a 52-hour week in the summer. Prices for stock in New Zealand were only about half as high and yet wages were to be set at a higher standard. “The tendency of the Bill will be to restrict employment,” Mr Hamilton added. “All attempts at regulation must have that effect. At the same time the Government will destroy the old basis of mutual agreement on which our farming industry has been developed.”