FARM LABOUR.

Evening Star, Issue 22441, 11 September 1936, Page 8

FARM LABOUR.

[f, as is populax-ly supposed, the Labour Party was materially assisted into power by the votes of small farmers, it may be assumed with some degree of gccuracy that its Agricultural Workers Bill will be regarded as a disappointment, by those who expected a fitting reward for their faith. But the farmers are becoming inured to disappointments. The dairy farmers had their first bitter taste when the prices fixed under the guarantee system were announced. These prices have a bearing on the predicament relating to the payment of wages. They are too low to permit the farmers to pay their workers on a scale sufficiently generous to compete with the Public Works Department—a fact the truth of which is reflected in various remarks made in the Souse of Representatives when the Bill was under .discussion. The provisions under the Bill mean that the farmer, under the guaranteed price system, has to pay his men £2 2s a week and found, but, although the price leaves the farmer in the position of having to be content with fewer benefits from the new legislative regime than his men, he may be not so much concerned at the pay-out as at the situation created by a shortage in labour. A man who is found is on a good financial footing at £2 2s a week, but this and the additional fact that his periods of high pressure activity are not so regular as those of a Public Works employee cannot make him altogether oblivious to the roseate prospects of handling more cash on a Government job and working only forty hours a week for it.

Moreover, man is naturally a sociable animal. The companionship of a Public Works camp has its appeal. For the same reason big stations also have their appeal. Mr Roy (Clutha) knew what he was talking about when he recalled in the House the experiences of the old days, when men went to large stations at a low wage rather than to small farms where they had no companionship. He was also correct when he said that the farm labourer of today must have a greater knowledge of machinery and of the soil than the worker of years ago, and that, in respect to stock, there were many more diseases than were formerly understood. Herein may lie the, eventual solution of the farmers’ labour problems. If the call of the land can bo strengthened by the elimination of drudgery through the substitution of machinery, and if at the same time the work can be made more interesting through the increased use of the scientific knowledge now available, the occupation is one which should be much more attractive than hitherto. The advantages of farm life would be still more clearly defined if the way were made easier for young men to acquire land of their own after having gained the experience essential to success. An improved land settlement scheme could well be seriously considered by the Government. In the meantime it appears that little can be done other than watch the effect of the legislation so far enacted. An entirely satisfactory judgment can be pronounced only after the seasonal operations still to come have been completed.