THE UNEMPLOYMENT LEVY.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20101, 3 December 1930, Page 15

THE UNEMPLOYMENT LEVY.

TO THE EDITOB OT THE FIIEBS gj r> Once upon a time there was a married farmer who had a nice farm and some children. He had some of the children nearly as long as he had had the farm which was about seven and the others not quite so long. Well this farmer was farming away quite nicely till he came to the year l.wu, when a slump came down and he got very worried and aian t. know what to do because he was losing money over his farm, but ]ust as he was noit worried his wife came j»fc> • little I*W*oj quit* unexpectedly.

or the farmer managed to borrow some money—l am not quite sure which. The farmer said: "How nice. I will now be able to buy those good rams to improve my flock. I will also be able to put lime on that sour paddock so that it will grow a good crop next year, and I will not now have to hre that good ploughman that I was going to get rid of because I had no money to pay his wages. How nice everything is going to be, and I will be able to put up that fence, too, which is going to improve my jjiojierty and make it carry more stock. 1 am so pleased übout it all." . Hut the farmer's wife said: Oh no, I do not like your ideas at all. Alter a year or two things will got better and then there will be fearful arguments as to who all the money bc.ongs to. I do not like your ideas. I have better ideas than yours. I have seen some lovely porcelain wash-basins that stand right out in the middle of the bathroom, and 1 am going to put them into the house. I have also seen some lovely carpets in Dunedin, and T am going to write away at once and order one for each room \ and T think some of thoso lovely now wallpapers would brighten up our homo, so T will ha\ e them too." Well, after a lot of talking and arguing, the farmer's wife got her own way, as she was a great talker and arguer, and thev made their house look very pretty. But thinccs went on for some yonrs and the farmer got jxiorer and poorer and his farm cot weedier, and his stock bndder and badder. till he go? sold up and pushed out and had to go and get work with tho unemployed, building pretty bits along the river-bank and a road round the beautiful harbour because it looked so nice. It was all very sad but very true, and it did not have a happy ending.—Yours, etc., A SIMPLE STORYTELLER. (A long way after Mr Punch.) December 2nd, 1930.

P.'S.—For the benefit of any congenital idiot that may read this, I woußi like to point out that a great deal of the unemployment fund of threequarters of a million is going to be thrown awnv on unreproductive work when the whole countryside is one big eyesore for want of money spent on it.