SUBSIDIZED FARM LABOUR

Southland Times, Issue 24181, 18 July 1940, Page 4

SUBSIDIZED FARM LABOUR

To The Editor Sir,—ln a recent issue of your paper a correspondent signing himself “Spade Thumper” says he considers 15/- to 21/- too high a rate of pay for digging, tiling and filling in a chain of drain. As drains without timber, gravel, pug or standstone are very hard to find, a fair man will not average a chain a day (complete job) and he will finish at night muddy and wet through, does “Spade Thumper” consider £1 a day too much for this class of work? The long gum boots he must purchase before he can start will cost him £l/10/and it is worth 2/ -a day to wear them. He has to carry his bit of lunch and sit on a tussock out in the swamp and eat it with no shelter from wind or rain. No doubt '“Spade Thumper” would like the good old times back again, when half a dozen men would be competing for his draining and he could name his own price. Sir, I wonder if “Spade Thumper” could dig a drain.—Yours, etc., LOAFER. July 16, 1940.