WORKERS AND JOBS

Taranaki Daily News, 14 January 1932, Page 11

WORKERS AND JOBS

“COUNTRY IS KINDER.” , ONE MAN’S EXPERIENCE. We .have not had many opportunities lately at our place for the discussion of current problems, because we have all had plenty of work to do and there has been no chance to get together. But a chap who waA in giving us a hand let loose at smokc-oh for a few minutes and gave us all something to think about, writes a correspondent of the Press, Christchurch. His theme was an old one. He had worked in the city, he told us, and got sick of it. If a man worked on a farm he might expect to end his days on it, but the city boss just put him off when he was too old. J This was not a man with a grievance

or a bee in his bonnet. He had simply taken to the country because he thought it was kinder than the town, and he explained that he was not a wanderer. He had, as he eaid, picked up with a boss he liked and had stayed with him, and though he was temporarily taking on another job he could always go back and be welcome. It was because his boss was having a hard time that he thought ho would take a spell somewhere else until times improved. “I’ve been on the same farm for 24 years,” he said, “and can stay there another 24 if I like. But my first job in the town lasted six months and my second 14 months, and then I had ten years with one firm, only to bo put off at a week’s notice when things got a bit slack. Then I had three years or so with another firm and got put off again. I’ve seen men who worked 30 years 'with the same people put off through no fault of their own, simply because they were getting old and a bit slow. When a firm puts in a, new machine it puts aside so much each year for depreciation and when the

machine'is worn out it can be scrapped ' without costing anything and the money is there to buy another machine to replace it. But it isn’t that way with men. “Town firms look after everything but their hands,” he went on. “A good business has a depreciation reserve for stock and another for plant and another reserve so that it can go on paying dividends in bad times, but it doesn’t have a wages reserve so that it can go on paying wages in bad times. Some firrtis have superannuation funds, which are all to the good, but not funds for the protection of both jobs and wages. “When I’m finished here, if I can’t get another job I’ll go back to my old boss and potter about for a few bob and my keep and be happy. You couldn't do that in a boot factory or a town store. Give me the country every time. It treats you kinder.” This is not altogether a new view, of course, but I’m afraid we don’t give such subjects the thought we ought io give them, and I pass on the story for my town friends to think about.