CITY LABOURER AND FARMER.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 16455, 6 June 1919, Page 7

CITY LABOURER AND FARMER.

WHO IS THE BETTER OFF? (Dairy Bulletin and Primary Producers’ Journal.) Tho cost of living question looms large in these days, and is likely to cause a deal of trouble before it is satisfactorily settled. Perhaps it may never be settled to please everybody. Each one knows the limitations of his own lot, and there is always a strong tendency to imagine workers in other fields better off than tve are. Distant fields are always greener than the patch under our eyes. If we could only get the right perspective and true proportions life might bo simpler and easier to live. Perhaps that is expecting too much in these days of fierce antagonisms and hasty resentment, sure signs of frayed nerves and lack of moral control. But life is hard for most. Whether producers are worse or better off than city toilers, commonly known as consumers, who shall say? The report of the InterState Commission oi the state of affairs obtaining in the dairying industry in Victoria is not ve/y cheering. The Argus recently summarised it, possibly picking out and piecing together the darkest patches, making a- wierd garment of sombre and depressing hue, and accounting for it all by too much “protection.” But then the Argus is Victoria’s free trade champion, and is psychologically incapable of seeing any’ other conclusion.

On the other hand Sydney Bulletin, still more recently, contrasts the city labourer with the farmer, and' of the two the labourer seems to have the best of tho deal. Both, however, are rather badly off, according to _ the pictures drawn, and this journalistic champion of “protection” put tho state of affaire down to too much “free trade.” Possibly both are wrong in their conclusions, but they make good reading, and are worth reproducing: — COST OF PRODUCTION. “After inquiring into dairying industry conditions, the Interstate Commission reported that the general effect of tho evidence was disquieting. Tho commissioners were concerned at the gloomy accounts given of the prevailing state of affairs, and they wrote : Tho question is a serious one, seeing that tho milk produced in Victoria in 1914 amounted to 193,000,000 gallons, which, at 8d a gallon, would be worth £6,433,333.” A witness from the Victorian Farmers’ Union submitted estimates of tho cost of producing milk, and figures dealing with the returns obtained. In the result, the commission reported, this witness showed that a man working 60 hours per week would earn only 26s 6d a week during nine months of the year. He worked with his two brothers as partners, and the earnings of each per hour wore:—

1914, 2Jd per hour. 1915, loss of Is lid per hour, 1916, Is 4d per hour.

“It is stated,” said the commission, “that at no period since dairying was established has the production of butter given a return of 9d per hour for the labour required to produce it, taken over a period of three consecutive years, and that during recent years the number of farms that were formerly used as dairy farms which are now used for other purposes is astqnishing.JTho cause of this process of elimination is put down to the general bettor conditions in other callings, in most of which Is 2d per hour is assured without risk and with no Sunday’ labour.” , And again.—“The evidence showed that tho dairy farmer has to have good land, artificial feeding, the best of herds, and must work hard to obtain a fair return on his outlay and make a reasonable living. In a large number of cases, even after living a strenuous life, the result was said to bo quite inadequate as an incentive to go into the industry.” Tho commission declared that the inquiry, made it clear that there was nothing in tho shape of profiteering in the producing stage of tho milk industry, and that in fixing the prices great consideration had to bo given to the fact that every incentive w’as needed to maintain the whole dairying industry at a high level of output, as it was of immense importance to every’ State, and any unfair reduction of reward might cripple production. Labouring, as it is, under the crushing burden of high prices, what is now proposed in relation to tho industry ? To permit of “favours” being granted to city manufacturers additional customs duties are to be imposed. The costs of everything the producer uses are to he further increased; production is to be made still more unprofitable. Dairymen are to have their earnings reduced below the miserable pittance that has been theirs in the, past. The result, of course, will bo thatj the number of farms that were formerly used as dairy farms, and will in future ho used for other purposes will become still more ‘/astonishing.”

Fraught with disaster to dairymen as this proposal to make high prices higher is, it has an ominous significance to tho consumer as well. Milk, .butter and cheese prices ate high. The reasons as defined, by the Interstate Commission are:

Milk.—Tho rise in the price of whole milk is due to natural causes, viz., the increased cost of dairy cows, of labour, and of plant. Butter.—The rise in butter price is a direct result of the increase in cost due to the drought and to the rise in wages for production, marketing and distribution.

Cheese.—The price of cheese has risen as a result of the causes already noted in the report® on milk and butter. Bacon.—The rise in the price of bacon is chiefly due to the additional cost of pigs. Other raw materials have also advanced. New customs duties will increase prices. Farmers and those engaged in other industries.will have to pay more for their supplies. The cost of these additional expenses will he passed on to the public. The cost of living will rise, there will "be industrial unrest, wages will go up, the cost of living will advance again, and the long-suffering public will have to pay more all round. Is the granting of ! ‘favours” to city manufacturers a good and sufficient set off against the crippling of industries and the further inflation of the prices already excessively swollen ?”—The Argus. TWO PICTURES. A lot of persons have been writing to the papers lately in this strain (sample letter in Sydney Morning Herald);— “I am a married man with one child. I am a labourer receiving £3 6s per week. . . Life to me is a continual grind, with always the fear of the future. The average worker has no resources beyond the wage he can earn by the sale of his labour. . . . Apart from pictures once a week and an outin cr on Sundays now and then, we have

no luxuries A three weeks’ sickness and we are thrown hack three months. ... X am a mere cog, and with the roar of the machinery at times it is maddening. . . . The workers are brutalised and degraded by the contmnal grind and the tear of unemployment. . How, then, can they be blamed if they turn to sabotage, Bolshevism, etc. f” It pathetic enough, and hero is the other picture as it might be drawn: “1 am a farmer working 250 acres of wheat land, which is tue extreme limit for a single-handed worker doing fairly long hours, and at times seven days awveek. 1 have to get the use of £ISOO or £IBOO worth of land and improvements, and at least £6OO worth, of perishable horses and implements to have a chance to do these long hours, and the money costs 7i per cent. Of course, if you can find £llOO or £I2OO yourself and only require to borrow a comparative trihe, tlie money is cheaper. A crop of 12 bushels bring in about £520 at very ordinary rates. (You can’t crop the place your house and outbuildings stand on, or the road leading to the house, or the dam, so some laud is wasted). About £35 goes in seed. Bags cost £SO. Insurance is £l9 or £2O. The city worker doesn’t need to insure the product of his labour ; the boss does that. About £SO goes in repairing and replacing wornout machines and replacing dead horses. (The city worker’s boss looks after the machines and horses). Horses have •to be fed as well as myself and family. Medical charges (family and horses) are higher than in the city, because the doctor doesn’t live at the next comer. The price of a baby is amazing. The interest eats up £l5O or £l6O, or more. There is something for fertiliser, and there are sundries. I pan out at about £3 10s a week, except in very bad years. Of course, 1 pay no rent, but the house wouldn’t fetch much rent in the city, there being no water or gas in it. 1 don’t go to the picture show so often as once a week, for it is too far off. A three weeks’ sickness throws mo back, and three weeks’ sickness among the horses throws me further back. (The city labourer never sits up all night nursing a sick implement, and it doesn’t matter to him if his boss' horse, which ho drives, is thrown hack into the next parish and breaks its neck). lam paid once a year, and unless I am ahead of the game I must find credit till next pay-day. My great fear is not loss of employment. I get more employment than any city labourer dreams of. My fear is lest the year’s wages may not bo paid. It all depends on the drought. How often does a city labourer have a year’s wages owing to him with no certainty of payment? I don’t have an occasional outing on a fine Sunday. I have an outing every day even if it rains like Sheol. I have no temptation to sabotage, for the only machines I can break are my own—at least, I owe for them. I suppose I am brutalised, but 1 never had time to think much about it. Cf course, I hfivo the dignity of being an employer—l employ myself and an occasional swagman. I am a master, in fact. Also, lam a capitalist with somebody else’s capital. I don’t rank as a labourer because I have learned a trade. If I were an ahbitionless person content to he a labourer, or a mere “cog,” people would cal! me a swagman.’ ’ These are two pictures. One represents the brute-force toiler who is numerous, partly because there are few chances in this importing country to learn highly-skilled industry—the man whoso life is one long struggle to earn enough by doing ass’s toil to pav the foreign profiteers who sell him almost everything he uses at steadily rising prices. The other represents the man who has to look for a great part of his market at the other end of the world because there are so few skilled, wellpaid artisans hero to he his customers, and who gives the shipping and agency people one-fourth of his export crop to pay them for selling the other threefourths. Frankly, this paper wouldn't care to he either of them.—The Bullet tin.