PUBLIC OPINION

Taranaki Daily News, 8 November 1935, Page 7

PUBLIC OPINION

VIEWS ON CURRENT TOPICS SHORTAGE OF FARM LABOUR. SHARE MILKER’S EXPLANATION. (To the Editor). Sir,—Would you kindly allow me to'' state my opinions on why there is such a shortage of farm labour. I see in today’s Daily News a report of the South Taranaki Farmers’ Union opinion on farm hand shortage. The union says that single men. will not settle too well, and will cause a moving population. It says that married men would solve the position by the farmers erecting cottages for them. Last season I had a married couple's I job, and I found the conditions next door to slave driving. My wife had to take two little children in her arms and go and get the 80 cows in every afternoon. I dare not stop my work in the paddocks until I saw that she had the cows in. We often had to milk them by ourselves. We received only £2 a week in wages, Would you not wonder at what sort of boss we had, as he would sit in the house listening to the wireless and watch my wife drag the little children round with her after the cows? She went down m health, and is ’not over it yfet. It- was always half past nine and ten o’clock at night before she got to bed, and she was up again early in the morning. I myself always toil honestly, and can prove that, too. ' . , < This job settled me taking on a married couple’s job on conditions under which my wife had to work in the shed. ’ I would take a job with any farmer on condition that he paid me £3 a week for myself only, with the usual allowances, and not 16 hours a day either. I do not ■ mind 12 or 13 hours a day but when it comes to working day and night it is no use to me. There are some really decent farmers, I will admit, but the ones who do not work themselves expect’ the man to do two men’s work. Any farmer who will challenge me on these conditions or would like to know who I am can do so through the Daily News Office. I am only speaking for myself and what I have been through on the farms.—l am, etc., AN IRISH EMIGRANT. New Plymouth, November 6.