THREAT TO FARMING

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 11, Issue 4, 12 March 1947, Page 7

THREAT TO FARMING

PRODUCTION MUST FALL FARMERS CANNOT WORK A 40-HOUR WEEK The very real dangers to New Zealand’s main industry, attendant upon the proposed rise of wages and the institution of a 40-hour week for farm workers, was stressed by Colonel M. P. Adams, chairman of the Auckland Meat and Wool Section, in an address to a meeting of the Rotorua sub-province of the New Zealand. Federated Farmers’ Auckland (Inc.) on Tuesday. The net effect of raising wages and reducing working hours, said Colonel Adams, would be that the primary production of the country would drop. This was as inevitable as night following day.

“Let me make my meaning perfectly clear,” he said. “At the moment farm employees generally are perfectly satisfied with their lot, or at least were perfectly satisfied until this new bait was dangled in front of their eyes. They would not be human if they did not favour it. But how is it going to affect them in the long run? Just this way: The average sheep farmer in the country (my position will not allow me to speak for the dairy industry) is at present carrying roughly 700 sheep on his property. This means that his annual output of wool is between 15 or 16 bales. His remuneration for that output, judging the price of wool to approximate £2O a bale, is £3OO.

“Should the farmer be employing two men on his property all the year round at the present scale of wages he will obviously be forced by the proposed new award to cut his expenses by some means or another. The only means that he can adopt is by reducing his flock and dismissing one man. Thus his annual income will not be as depleted as it would were he to carry on with his present establishment.” The implications, continued Colonel Adams, were perfectly plain. The loss to the country, which was continually being urged to greater' production, would be a great . one and as the sheep industry represented a large proportion of the country’s economic, vertebrae, the pinch would be felt throughout New Zealand.

“I would like to make it perfectly plain,” continued the speaker, “that I am not viewing this problem from a political viewpoint. I have always maintained that the control of farmers’ affairs should be entirely divorced from political control. There is no place for it. The proposed new Federation of Labour award should not be attributed with any political significance, although I admit that it is rather hard to completely forget that aspect.” Dealing in an interview with the apparent apathy of farmers throughout the Dominion to the administration of their affairs by their own federation, Colonel Adams said that Rotorua was not the only district so affected. Farmers throughout the country were notoriously disinterested in getting together and airing some of their grievances in open forum, although many of them, after reading Press accounts of these meetings, were rather prone to destructively criticise the actions taken. The executives of these branches it was found, were invariably composed of the same members year after year. This, he felt, was not because of any desire on the part of the executive to stand for re-elec-tion, but that there simply was not anyone to fill their positions.

• “We must have new blood. It is not the slightest bit of good enrolling members through paid organisers. The men will enrol, pay their subscriptions and then promptly forget about the whole matter,” said Colonel Adams. “The men must be personally cantacted and made to see why their attendance at the meetings is essential. Upon them will devolve the responsibility of running the federation in a few years when the present older members have been forced to retire. Upon the new blood, therefore, depends a living body or a corpse.”