The Taranaki Herald. (DAILY EVENING.) THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 1914. COUNTRY WORKERS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 144342, 5 March 1914, Page 2

The Taranaki Herald. (DAILY EVENING.) THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 1914. COUNTRY WORKERS.

Farmers are continually complaining of the difficulty of obtaining it sufficiency of labour, in consequence of which they are not able to do as much as they would like in the way of cultivation of their land. This is to he regretted, because there is no doubt that, in Taranaki at any rate, the land would lie much more productive if it were better "Keep the ploughing going'/'was the maxim of one of (he most successful of Taranaki farmers, but to do this means the employment, in many eases, of labour which the farmer has a difficulty in obl-.ining. One cause of this shortage of labour is that on few farms is accommodation to he found for married workers, .Single men, or married couples “without encumbrances,” the husband to do farm work am! the wife to help with the house work, are in most demand, and (hose arc the class who are most inclined to a roaming life. The man with a family likes to settle down permanently where he can get fairly constant work, and he chooses tlie towns partly because he cannot got a home in the country, unless he has sufficient means to rent or purchase a small farm

for himself. At a gathering of farmers the other day at Manaia, Mr. E. Barleyman, in proposing the'toast of “The Dairy Industry,” expressed the hope that the Government or County Councils would vigorously take up the question of building houses for farm labourers, preferably at or near cross roads, so that men could get their families into the country. We fear that few County Councils are in a position to embark upon such a policy, but the Government would do infinitely better service by erecting homes for country workers than lor town workers. Private enterprise is usually ready enough to supply the demand for cottages in and about the cities and towns, but not iu the country. It is a pressing social problem to counteract the tendency of population to drift towards the centres, and the Government is helping that drift by providing attractive homes for workers in and near the centres, instead of trying to induce people to go to the country to live by providing homes there. It a farmer living a few miles from New Plymouth wants casual labour for a few days or weeks and comes to town to try and obtain it be is met with the reply that “it is too far away,” and the work has to remain undone, while labour is perhaps unemployed iu Now Plymouth. But if the Government wore to adopt and vigorously cany out a policy of providing homes for workers in the country the case would be very different. Suppose, for instance, the Government acquired land at, say, 801 l Block, Egmont Village, Ukato, or other convenient places and erected cottages on sections of two or three acres—sufficient for a man to keep a horse or a cow and have a good garden with a few fruit trees. He would certainly be able to get as constant work on neighbouring farms as the casual labourer iu town gets at the wharf, in the goods sheds, or elsewhere, and his spare time would bo filled up on his own section. A dozen such cottages grouped together would form a little community in which the conditions of life might be made idmost ideal. There would be good educational facilities, and children would grow up under more healthy conditions, both physically and morally, than in the towns. They would acquire a liking for rural pursuits, and when old enough would he certain of obtaining employment without difficulty on the farms to the advantage of all parties and of the State. It is a matter which the co-operative dairy companies and the Farmers' Union branches might well take up.