FARM LABOUR

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 280, 25 November 1937, Page 6

FARM LABOUR

IS THERE A SHORTAGE? BACK-COUNTRY SETTLERS’ EXPERIENCE “WE ARE UNABLE TO GET MEN” Subscribing to the belief that one year’s seeding on back-country in New Zealand means nine years’ weeding, a Waitotara Valley settler called at the “Chronicle” office yesterday to complain of the shortage of farm labour. “There are two of us on a rough, hill property of 2500 acres,” he said. “We advertised for a general farmhand and offered £2 10s a week ana found. We got no replies. I called at the Placement Office, also, to see whether I could get a couple of good men for scrub-cutting to be paid by the day, the hour, or by contract. I called again this (yesterday) morning Two men had been sent out on Sunday, but their car broke down and they came back.”

“It is difficult to see what can he done to overcome the position,” the settler proceeded. “You cannot blame men if they prefer to stay in town and get high wages in preference to going into the back country. I believe that if married quarters are built on back-country properties there may be a chance to hold men there, but single chaps are simply there today and gone to-morrow. Building houses, however, costs money. What will be the future of all that backcountry? That is what I would like to know. We are two brothers and if it was not for that probably there would only be one of us on the place now. How can two of us look after 2500 acres and keep the scrub down? They say that one year’s seeding means nine years’ weeding in country like that, and unless we can get the labour before the seeding what is the good of it? I quite see that there will be plenty of labour available later, when the seasonal work ends, but what use is it to back country in March or April?” The property in question lies some 30 miles up the Waitotara Valley from Waitotara township and is about 50 miles from Wanganui. Shearing has been finished, the man who had been employed on the property remaining until that was over and then leaving largely on account of the long hours. A “Chronicle” reporter interviewed the Wanganui Placement Officer, giving an outline of the facts quoted by the Upper Waitotara settler and was informed that two men had been sent out but had not reached their destination, their means of conveyance breaking down. They had returned and would not undertake such a long journey again.

It was frankly admitted that there is a shortage of farm labour at present, most of it due to seasonal work. Shearing absorbed several men, Wanganui wool stores had been manned earlier this year and the Imlay works was putting on its second chain of workers almost immediately to handle the meat season. Later there would be a good deal of labour available for farms.

“Our experience is that every job has to be treated on its merits,” the officer, replying, stated to the reporter. “Just as every applicant is different so is every job. It is easy to suit some employers, harder to suit others. It is the same with employees. On many of these backcountry farms the long hours are the problem. Where the boss spends the whole of h ; s life in work because the

profit is his, the worker is not disposed to do so. He hasn’t the inspiration, and you find men placed on farms one week and off the next. The problem is one with many angles.”