HOLIDAY LABOUR

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 6 January 1931, Page 7

HOLIDAY LABOUR

REFLECTIONS OF BROWN

THE COW DEFIES THE LAW MESSAGE TO THE FARMERS (From the N.Z. "Herald”). “I would like you,” said Brown, as iie hoed hopefully among the beans, “to address a word of greeting to our friend the farmer, particularly the dairy farmer. When the city makes holiday part of it has a hurried glance at the paddocks wherein a large number of men and women earn the bulk of the country’s revenue. "Blit, they do not see the real work being done. That they take for granted. As a matter of fact, they do not allow the thought of toil to invade their senses because the holiday are on. A few people go to make holiday on farms, but how the dairying section of it finds time and energy to entertain them I do not know. These visitors, of course, see what is going on, and some attend the milking shed with great regularity, and rather enjoy the novelty of reaping the cream harvest.

A WEEK OF 14 MILKINGS “The drawback is that this sort of harvest has to he reaped twice every day. Do we of the city pause to consider the fact that there are 14 milkings every week of a long season, and that the majority of the dairying people personally carry out the task without a break, and that their day of relentless duty is stretched out to embrace about 14 hours of the.clock? In the holidays there may he a pause for a little outing between times, but they can never fpel that sense of freedom experienced "by people who can lock their office door and thank heaven they will not use that key again for three days or three weeks, as the case may be.

“The city folk think of an ordinary week’s work as one of five and a-half days. If they belong to the trading order which does. not have a long Christmas holiday they nevertheless have two days each week, with a weekend of a day and a-half thrown in. “Cows, however, cannot be legislated out of their 14 milkings a week habit. The Factories Act is defied. The stupid animals know no law.' They even clamour to be milked when, in tlie flush of tlie season, their bags become heavy with the stuff that pays for the bread of a large portion of the population. And those who toil on the dairy farm must bow to her ladyship the cow, tyrant and toil-maker.

COMPARATIVE DAWNS “So,” said Brown, “please address a few observations on these lines to the dairy farmers and their wives and their children, who rarely escape the necessity for pulling their weight —and then some. We of the town really know nothing about the endless task they have. Even at this time of year many of them are out of lied and beginning tlicir work in the grey light of dawn —and the grey dawn is a very fine time of day if one happens to he on holiday and after about ‘4O gallons of sleep’ awakes in some place of rest and beauty and proceeds to swim or catch a fisli, or produce some fragrant wood smoke below a blaek billy. “I’ve known some fine dawns myself,” said Brown, “and perhaps the finest, from the artist’s point of view, wan one on which my friend the enemy came a trifle close with his sniping. But that is by tlie way. To appreciate a fine dawn one must never have a surfeit of them, and that is just the trouble with the cow ‘cookies.’ Rain, hail or fine they have to milk the cows, and, although they may have some compensations in life, compensations which do not loom large when prices arc low, they are tied to the wheel and have to endure great monotony,

QUALIFIED COMPENSATIONS “We say that change is rest, hut here there can lie no change. I will admit that a man living close to the soil, particularly if lie is a farmer at heart, gets a kind of satisfaction out of life that is not always found by one who is citv-bound and cannot lead so natural a life. One of the great moments in the life of an old farmer of my acquaintance is when he gets his crop safely slacked, but there is a world of difference between a grain farm and a dairy farm. “And remember this, too; we who can escape from duty, if only for two or three days at a time, have the chance of forgetting the worries of bad trade, particularly if we have company. But the fact that it is New Year is hardly powerful enough magic to take the farmer’s mind off financial worry, and whether it be Christmas Day or New Year’s Day he is just as liable to lie wondering if the toil is going to cover expenses. "And so,’’ said Brown, “give them a word to tell them that they are not entirely forgotten by their friend the stranger. “At the same time you might drop a line also to tell all folk engaged in duies which cannot stop, even though tlie calendar finishes its circuit. I am thinking of dairy factory employees and policemen, of railway and tramway people, of firemen and engineers in power-houses and refrigerating stores (it would be a sad blow to the farmers if those plants closed for the holidays), of doctors and nurses, and hospital attendants, of seafaring men, not forgetting those who run the ferries and the pleasure fleet, of milkmen and bakers, and —oil, there are scores more.’’ “What about all the folk who produce newspapers,” asked Brown’s friend.

“I thought that their lives were one long song,” said Brown.