MORE COMPLAINTS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 3, Issue 261, 22 January 1941, Page 5

MORE COMPLAINTS

NO LABOUR FORTHCOMING

DISTRICT FARMERS WORRIES

"I was glad to see the BEA-* CON giving publicity to the difficulties we are encountering in respect to farm labour," said a

district farmer who visited this office yesterday and complained of the growing problem which is causing universal worry in agricultural centres throughout the Dominion. He ventured the general opinion that unless something very drastic was done in the near future the resuls would be reflected in the diminishing returns of the dairying industry. We Daren't Complain. Said another farmer from -Otakiri: "If we want to keep our men, even though they wouldn't have lasted an hour in normal times,, we have to humour them, and grant them concessions and privileges we cannot even allow ourselves. He stated further that a newly engaged sharemilker who failed to turn up to the first morning's milking, complained that it was. raining, and he didn't feel inclined to turn out in wet weather. These and such other idiotic attitudes as taking exception* to the fact that there was only 'bread and butter and jam for tea" make one feel that some farm hands have no sense of responsibility whatsoever. Training for Home Guard. Another worried farmer, confided that his only remaining hand, a Maori, desired to leave him in order to go back to his home centre and join up with the local unit of the Home Guard. His only reason was that his mates were in that district. His employer expressed the fervent hope that the Home Guard authorities will take steps to ensure that recruits arc forced to join up with the units in their own respective territories, rather than be given a free hand to parade the conn tryside in order to make their choice of the centre they fancy most Perhaps in this respect the Home Guard could be persuaded to assist directly or indirectly through its members to fill the most urgent position by giving them sympathetic publicity and endeavouring as a body to relieve the situation. Another 'Invisible' Worker. An Edgecumbc farmer thought he had overcome his difficulties when a self-possessed likely looking young applicant answered his advertisement and asked when he was to start. "To-morrow morning" replied the relieved dairyman. The young fellow departed to pick up his gear with the promise to meet the farmer in half an hour's time. Were it not for his cows, the farmer would still be waiting. No Week-end Work. Another young man from the city told the farmer who had paid his fare to the Bay ot Plentj% that unless he was given Saturday and Sunday off, he was not prepared to make a start. Asked if ho thought the cows took-a holiday during the week-ends, the hopeful 'blandly replied that he couldn't help that, all he knew was that he would not work week-ends. Exit another spoon fed individual whose future is obviously ruined and whose sense of responsibility had dwindled to the size of smug brain. "I never stay more than three months in any one place," 1 said another youth, who said he was more interested in seeing New Zealand than assisting New Zealand's sorely pressed dairying industry. A Put-up Yarn. Pleading that his mother was seriously ill in an Auckland institution, another farm-hand gave notice. Asked if he would be prepared to come back, he said that lie didn't know what his mother had in mind and so could make no promises. The sorely pressed farmer was surprised a week later to discover that his latest visitor Avas the 'mother* concerned, lit and well, who had arrived in the district to spend a holiday near her 'loving son!' Thera was no greater surprise than to be told that li£ was now supposedly in the city, administering tenderly to li©r in her illness.

Tw© weeks later the same yov.ng scoundrel was begging Social Security allowance in oriler to> continue ■fois loaf round Auckland, and actu-

ally hacT-Wie effrontery to write the farmer he had left so flagrantly [in tine iureh, to falsify the Departmental form (as to his former employ-, ment) in order that he could draw the allowance for a single man unable to obtain employment.