COST OF LIVING MEETING

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 46, 19 November 1918, Page 6

COST OF LIVING MEETING

Sir,—At th<3 Rbovo. meeting hold in Wellington lately Jlr. 'C. 11. Chapman bail a few misstatements lo make concerning the dairy industry. Re staled: "The total value of New Zealand dairy products was 4)7,521,904-, and the' wages paid totalled A'255,C1i0," and he further said '■every time a worker in the industry received £\ ho had the pleasure of knowing that tho employer had made £\. and it was owing to the vast disproportion of wages to the profits that he braced the trouiblo,"

I have b«on a dajry farmer for 20 years, nnd if all statements made at the Wellington meeting were as true as Mr. Chapman's then the reason of tho discontent is not far to seek. In the first place the share milker receives 40 per cent, to Jo pw cent, for doing the milking by hand, and ,'!fl per cent, to ffl per cent, by machine, the owner finding tho land (now costing from ,£7O lo 43115 per acre) and the machinery, paying rate-, taxes, nnd management, depreciation, etc. Then we pay the cost of manufacture, cartage, railage, and shipping io main ports, so that the worker receives between 50 per cent, and 55 per cent, of the daily product, and not 3 per cent, as our reliable friend suggests.

Now let us see how sincere Jlr. Chapman is towards the dairy farmer or tho share milker and his labouring children, often times termed white child slaves, when it suits our 6oap-box orators and

ngitalors, over trying down with lb* farmer's products and up with mff& My family of eight slinro milkers, milking 120 cows, earned. ,CSOU for the year, or 4100 men, counting the one doing the housework—barely £2 per week each, and find themselves, or for seven days a week of eight hours (and dairyman's hours aire nearer twelve, in the middle of the season, than eight). This works out at B{d. per hour per milker for an eighthour day, I have not. heard of another family earning .-£BOO per year as their share, go Sid. is the maximum amount owned per hour by milkd's. So wo have, the ever-agitating city worker and coal miners, often times earning up to 3s. Cd. per hour per dav, ever clamouring for. cheaper milk,-butter, and cheese. In other' words consistent Labour is- demanding cheaper butter, or tk sweating of the so-called white child slaves earning at. most BJd. per hour, and who work the longest hours of any worker .in ALnv Zealand. The truth is that the city agitator and his friends believe in the maximum amount of pay and W minimum amount of work; and it is well known that if many cf tho city agitators and their friends only received the actual worth of their labour in food there would be a great many, deaths m the city of Wellington in a very short, time. Labour is ever crying "Down with the monopolist!" but they overlook the fact that they started unions and; monopolies. They object to immi. gratiou. to apprentices (which they limit), to boy or women labour in factories. They object to contract work, or a man getting what he earns, and so the good man umcler union vulo does-only .u much as the poorest worker, and the result is the good man is penalised and is dissatisOed. If wharf workers were paid at per ton, and each gang chose f their mates they would do more work and earn better wages, '.while the drones and the unfit would soon be forced to choose a more fitting occupation—l am, * tc; ' ' DAIRY FARMER,