POINTS OF VIEW

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 62, Issue 4430, 26 May 1941, Page 5

POINTS OF VIEW

OPINIONS OF OUR READERS. FARM INJUSTICES. Sir, From time to time I have noticed in our papers the problems that the farmers have to face up to and furthermore the Government has been very slow in giving the farmer some idea as to what the forecoming season is going to be like. But it is not a case of what the farmer is going to get but a question of every section of the community sharing in this big responsibility of winning the war. The farming community, if united, would bring emancipation to ‘themselves and the farm worker, but I am afraid there are a lot of farmers who do not want that sort of unity, one reason being that once the farm worker is a member of a workers’ union that farmer would have to play the game. That was proved at the Waikato Provincial Farmers’ Union annual meeting when a vote was taken on compulsory unionism; a large number of farmers were up against it. The farm employee according to the fixed wage is allowed £2 12s 6d per week and found. He starts at 5 a.m. and completes the day at 7 p.m., which comes to 100 hours a week. Working it out per hour, the employee gets sixpence an hour and found, with the glorious privilege of six hours off on Saturday and Sunday. During the day work beside the milking, if an employee cleans out six chains of draining a day, in five days he earns £5 at 3s a chain, to the farmer. The same applies to harvesting, fencing, etc., yet many farmers Will delight to talk about how shrewd and businesslike they are if they can even get a number of men to work in a hayfield for sixpence an hour less than the ruling price paid, but not shrewd and clever enough to organise and defend their rights when the dairy factories and other business enterprises are robbing them of their livelihood. Many farmers are living under the false assumption that they are loyal and patriotic by joining the Home Guard and yet never think that much of our so-called democracy is rotten to the core with economic injustice. I feel pledged to quote that portion of Scripture out of the Bible: “While Israel slumberth the enemy came and sowed tares amongst the wheat.” While the farmers have slept, all other sections of the community have sowed their seed by organisation and Government protection and have reaped a great harvest in the way of 40 hours a week, fixed wages, overtime, special rates of pay, holidays, etc. Abraham Lincoln started off with a small band of. men and women on a street corner in a small town in America to abolish slavery. After a hard struggle he became America’s greatest man. Let us never forget that the radical reformer made England and, further, as long as the British flag flies over us our radical reformers will never die but will blaze the trail for freedom from generation to generation. Never in the history of New Zealand were we in more need of a radical reformer than now; to reform the farmer and protect his interests and, further, make the farmer play the game with the farm employee.—We are, etc., C. CALDER, T. EDWARDS.