FARMS UNDER-STAFFED

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 3, Issue 260, 20 January 1941, Page 4

FARMS UNDER-STAFFED

Sir, —The deliberations of the Man power Committer at Whakatane indicate the extent to which the farms of the district are under-staffed.; Most of the appeals were Brought by farmers ov sharemilkers who have been carrying on this season with insufficient manpower on their farms. These working farmers are ... likely to have an unenviable time — in April, May and June when their 1 able-bodied workers are in camp.. The Government through its Manpower Committees seems to consider that it has be,en most generous to these appealed, because it is permiting them to retain their eligible men till the end of March. This Governmental mis-» conception seems to arise from an idea prevalent in the towns that milking and pig feeding fade into nothingness on April 1. Nothing of the kind. All that happens is that the clocks are put back half an hour and the sun sets at 6' p.m.t In this semi-tropical Bay of the herds have a bad habit of milking well in April and May, and the man in charge,, who has probably had some financial reverses during the Spriwg nmi sumifier, keeps milking So as to get all there is in the lllilUing business on May 20 and June 20. The men scheduled to go to camp on April 1 can enjoy the joke, for reveille does not sound in i camp till 6 a.m. and 6.30 p.m.,. ! while the alarm clocks in the cocky's bedroom seem to ring not later than 4.30 a.m., even in the soicalled "slack" months. So the farm boys in khaki' will get a couple of hours sleep while the old folks at home proceed to dry off; ' the cows as best they can. Then ' what about when next spring comes? Ht is assumed that the men from the territorial camps will go back to milk on July 1. More than likely they will say—"this getting up in the dark to milk by lamp-i light," and will get into the overs forces or into a 40-hour week job like the wharfies and cool store men, where there is overtime for Sunday toil. I fear that the Gov- 1 ernment, which lacks knowledge of conditions on the other side of thei. road fences and hedges, will find. £r it is easier to take young Men away from the milking business than to* put them back. Nearly yearai ago aMr Goldsmith, who came from a farming district in Iceland to write poetry in London recorded! the sad fact of. "The. Deserted Viln lage" and declared that

"A strong peasantry, long its coun-*

try's pride * When once supplanted, ne'er can be supplied." Of course, if cows could be milk* ed by bulldozers operated by 40-' hour week Public Works men nq| [one could criticise the Government's manpower policy, but as the song about "trees" tells us 1 "Poems are made by fools, and how! But only a cocky can milk a cow." I fear there is going to be a genuine scarcity of people to /nilk the cows next spring. In whicli case»\ our dairy industry, l'ike Humpty Dumpty will have, a great fall And all Bob Semple's bulldozers and his Public Works men T -:i Couldn't strip, strip, strip old . Spotty again. Yours etc., LEG ROPE. - J