PUBLIC OPINION

Taranaki Daily News, 25 October 1935, Page 7

PUBLIC OPINION

VIEWS ON CURRENT TOPICS

SMALLHOLDINGS LEGISLATION.

OPPOSITION TO NEW BILL.

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—ls the smallholding a reasonable proposition for unemployment? Undoubtedly there have been some successes but also there are many failures. In the great majority of cases the smallholders simply carry on to the limit of their endurance. In the latter fact lies the attractiveness of this scheme to most politicians. The smallholders carry on. Smallholding for some means independence and a certain amount of economic freedom. However glamorous the sentiment of “back to the land” seems, it really means in the case of the smallholder a method of employment whereby he Is forced to accept a lower standard of living than his industrial brother worker. The social standards that men '

have so painfully built up during the past 50 years go for nought where small holdings are concerned. What of a minimum wage standard, conditions of work, child labour, health insurance, unemployment benefits? The smallholder lack* all these. A lot could be done with unemployment if social standards wer» sacrified throughout the community, but are we prepared to sacrifice generally? We are inconsistent m that we demand that agriculture be turned into a scrap heap for the discarded labour of other industries. We surely do not. wish to see agriculture become a sweated industry. It might be said that it is already on the verge of that, in that it can hardly afford even the minimum standard of wages and conditions that to industrial labour would seem law. . When we speak of idle men and idle lands we must also remember that we have a lot of idle capital, idle machinery and worse than all these—idle wants. By supporting’the Small Farms Amendment Bill we are defeating the development of agriculture. We are being asked to support a system which limits machinery and labour and defies minimum standards. It is simply not sound agricultural policy; it is merely unemployment policy and as such is a- menace to the industry of agriculture, Our marketing policies have been devised to do away with competition; yet we are upholding in this Bill the worst form of competition and one that may be intensified. How many people realise the cost of this policy? The whole trend of agriculture to-day is towards further mechanisation leading to elimination of labour and reduced costs. If we can produce more with less labour why should we seek to perpetuate the old laborious system? Nobody wants to work hard for the sake of work. The final trend in agriculture will be towards large, holdings with short hours - ami high wages. The worker will have his smallholding where he lives, he will cultivate a garden no doubt, but provided-he can get a job on a large holding he is Unlikely to work hard on his own holding for a half day producing what half an hour’s work on a large holding would purchase. , The same inevitable revolution is going on in agriculture-as occurred in industry when the steam mills replaced the old hand looms. Moreover, the modern trend in agriculture cannot be arrested permanently by any political action. We have before us now the experience of the industrial revolution, and our statesmen ought to have enough foresight and vision to carry through an agricultural revolution in such a way that farmers, farm labourers and consumers would benefit from an abundance of food and an increase of leisure. The Small Farms Amendment Bill is a palliative and is of no value to progressive agriculture.—l am, etc., MAIRE M. ARTHUR. New Plymouth, October 24.

FACTORY WORKERS’ WAGES.

(To the Editor.) Sir,—Having read with much interest the remarks on factory workers’ wages' through the columns of your paper, particularly those of the writer- who styles himself “Cow Cockie,” I feel I must endorse the remarks of “Cheddar,” “Cheesepuncher,” etc., but not those of “Cow Cockie.” As it has been mentioned before, cheesemaking is far from being the best job there is, yet someone has to do it and it is we cheesepunchers who spend the best days of the year doing that, and endeavouring at all times to produce a first grade article. Yet we have to exist on such a paltry wage. Cheesemaking is, as everyone knows, with the exception of a fortnight or three weeks during the maturing of the cheese, the complete manufacture of an edible article in one day. From the time the first supplier arrives in the morning (and someone has to be there to take his nuik in) the making of the cheese begins and nobody can say definitely what time the factory hands will finish. Things might go along'nicely for an hour or so and then trouble starts, which in some cases might mean a finish, as we call it, anything from 7 o’clock onwards. Yet noone can go away. The Vats still have to be turned. Yet there .is no overtime - or anything to compensate the individuals concerned. Writing these few remarks from a married man’s point.of view, by the time he has the 8d in the £ deducted, his milk which at nearly every factory the employee has to pay -.for, also at ■ least 41b of butter per fortnight at Is 3Jd per lb, he has rather a nasty bite taken out of his earnings to. begin with. He goes home and there is £2 for the fortnight’s rent to be pi aside. Then he is left to figure out how the balance is going to pay the electric light bill, the grocer, the butcher, baker, etc., besides having to provide replacements which are inevitable in every home, and keep himself, wife and family, if any, in clothes and the necessities of life. The balance, and I’ll guarantee if any (after every tradesman has been paid) I expect he is welcome to put under the clock, or if the people are of an extravagant nature go and see a “talkie.” It is not a hard matter for anyone to find out the cockies’ personal opinions of the factory Workers’ wages. Some I have met who have been good enough to go along .to the factory when such times as sickness has overtaken members of the staff. And perhaps after they have put in only two or three days of it they say “You can have it for £lO a week.” They’d rather bring their milk and leave it to the cheesepunchers. Concluding these remarks I say that it is time something is done to restore at least the 10 per cent, cut, or even to give the £4 per week back again. It would not be over-paying the fac-’ tory workers.—l am, etc., A MARRIED CHEESEPUNCHER. Hawera, Oct. 24.