FLAXMILL WAGES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1766, 18 December 1917, Page 3

FLAXMILL WAGES.

A FARMER’S COMPLAINT.

“Dairy Parmer,” Bainesse, writes as follows to our, Palmerston evening contemporary, under date December 15th: —Yesterday the two men I employed on my farm gave me notice that unless I paid them equal to 14s per day of eight hours (the minimum rate now paid in the flaxmills of this district) that they would leave my employ, and go and work at the mills, where they could earn anything from 14s to 30s per day of eight hours, according to the work they took up, I made enquiries, and found that what they told me was correct, and that the minimum rate was 14s for eight hours, and many men were making as much as 30s per day. I do not blame the men for getting this rate of wages, but what is our Efficiency Board doing to allow a non-essential industry to mop up all the available labour? While making enquiries, I found that not any of the mills were short-handed, but all were working full-handed and full time. Now, sir, how often has it been proved up to the hilt at the sittings of the Military Appeal Boards how shorthanded some of the farms are, and is it not most essential that the farms should be made to pi’oduce as much food-stuffs as possible? But what is going to be done now the haymaking and harvesting is close at hand? Was this last increase in wages at the mills made with the object of keeping the men at the mills instead of .allowing them to go to the harvest fields? Will not these tactics rebound by making food-stuffs dearer? Several of my. neighbours and farmers of this district have had a similar experience to myself, and I trust that some abler pen than mine will take this matter up and bring under the notice of the Efficiency Board the serious state of affairs that is likely to be brought about in this district by the action of the llaxniillers in paying the tremendously high rate of wages they are now paying.