DAIRY FARMERS’ PROBLEMS

Southland Times, Issue 23336, 21 October 1937, Page 5

DAIRY FARMERS’ PROBLEMS

LABOUR DIFFICULT TO OBTAIN (Special to The Times) AUCKLAND, October 20. “The dairy farm labour problem in my district is as serious as it was last year,” said a northern Wairoa farmer. “I should say the situation is pretty well the same throughout the north. Many men I know personally have no labour at all, although they are offering more than the minimum rate of £2 5/a week and found. With the help of their families they are slaving on. In one case a man and his wife are milking large herds and the wife came out of a nursing home only six weeks ago. “Yet the rolls of sustenance men are heavy in the province. It is simply a case of men declining to work because the Employment Fund is prepared to keep them. “Our worry is that when the holidays come workers will, as usual, become restive and that some of them will depart without giving warning, though even a reasonable amount of notice would not be likely to be of any help.” He mentioned the case of a worker who last year left his employment on Christmas Day without giving any notice at all. The farmer and his wife, who had a baby a few months old, had to milk a herd of 90 cows for weeks and both were on the verge of a collapse before assistance was secured.