FARM LABORERS' APPALLING CONDITIONS.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 20, 21 July 1911, Page 15

FARM LABORERS' APPALLING CONDITIONS.

Sir, —I am writing to know if the Socialist Party can do something for loughmen and farm hands. I feel sure that if Socialists had to go through wnat ploughmen and farm hands have to experience that they wouid speedily aring about a social reform in that direction. The social conditions extended to farm hands, both married and single, are disgraceful in the extreme. The oociaiistis work so hard and faithfully that I think you could spare a cornel ror the oppressed farm laborer. Can yoti not consider our state a littit uore, and try to make things better and worthier for us.' Only this JSaturday morning 1 was in conversation with a -farmer who stood in need of a ploughman. i a»Kecl him how many aorses there would toe. Jtle said, Four, rive, and six, and to camp out, for the ..gh wage of 22s 6d per week. You nay see the farm laborers' habitations wherever you go in this South Island, and find them scarcely fit for human oeings to dwell in. Jb'ilth and vermin, and in lots of instances not so much as a fireplace. Is tins kind of living an incentive to virtue? _ Should you like to live after this manner yourself? especially on Sundays. If all men are brothers, then the farm laborer asks for a brother's help and protection. This depraved kind of living is making criminals instead of honest men. The cry is as plainly heard in these days as it was when the Israelites were under the oppressing Egyptians. We have no fixed pay, and they place us into whatever dirty hovel they please. Why should not the country worker live as comfortably as the laborer who lives in town? Why should he not be subject to the same social privileges as another. We are weak and unfortunate—you are strong and true. We therefore ask you as a weak brother would ask a strong brother for help and protection.— V" QTi rs G*tc • Christchurch. PLOUGBGVIAN.