WORKERS' SMALL FARMS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1447, 23 May 1912, Page 10

WORKERS' SMALL FARMS.

TO SETTLE UNSETTLED LABOURERS. In order to obviate the necessity for farm labourers and shearers who are married, living in the towns and paying high rentals, there is a movement on foot, 'according to tho "Lyttelton Times/' to secure au extension of tho system worked in connection with workers' dwellings. The idea is to persuade the Government to .allow married shearers and farm workers, by paying a small deposit, .to seI cure the Jeaso of ten-acre blocks, with dwellings on them, in farming districts. It is distinctly stipulated that in no easo is the freehold to bo given. Giving'the freehold, it is thought, would lead to aggregation. It is urged that by providing small holdings for tho married men in this way they would be induced to settle in the country and would, in addition to being a decided asset to the Dominion's industrial wealth, be available in, harvest and shearing times. • • There would, it is argued, be no danger, of the married men leaving their holdings to go to Australia for shearing. At present the trip across the Tasman Sea is made by the single men, who really lose by the journey. In fact, according to. prominent Labour officials, the travelling is decidedly unpopular among shearers. Tho leasehold' farms would obviate the necessity of high rentals, and in addition the.men would be able to keep ilhemseives and their families during.the off seasons. Some time ago suggestions were put forward in the "south that farmers should provide homes for married couples, but •it. is stated that' this has not met with the approval of the workers, who hold that if married men with children were housed by the employers it would lead to a kind of domination that would not he in the best interests of the -workers; The men, it is stated, admit that,if they were settled with their families in dwellings owned by, their employers they would not be so independent, and would not desire to move.

A deputation will probnbly wait on the Minister for Labour or tho Minister for Lands in regard to workers' small farms, and a petition is to be circulated among the workers interested in the movement for presentation to Parliament! ,