FACING A CRISIS

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12611, 23 November 1926, Page 7

FACING A CRISIS

APPEAL TO FARMERS TO MAN SLAUGHTERING BOARDS ARBITRATION COURT BLAMED “INCREASE IN COST QF PRODUCTION CANNOT BE TOLERATED” The slaughtering and freezing season in the North Island is commencing. Butchers are demanding an increase in rates of pay. This the companies are combating, and a call to fariners to man the wo:\.j has been made.

7er Press Association. ' NAPIER, November 22.

In calling upon the farmers of the district to man the works on December Ist, Mr J. S. Jessep, chairman of the Wairon Farmers’ Freezing Company, and vice-chairman of the New Zealand Meat Producers’ Board, made the following statement: “The fanners of New Zealand are facing a serious crisis no further increase in the cost can be born by the producers. The present demand for a 10 per cent, increase, made by the union leaders, on behalf of the freezing works' employees, is the direct result of an entirely unwarranted increase granted by the Arbitration Court to shearers and shed hands. This increase in the cost of shearing loaded the pastoral industry with a further £70,000 a year at a time when the industry can least afford to bear it. “It is a well-known fact that there ivas no general demand by the shearers for an increase, and the same applies with equal force to the present demand put forward by union leaders in connection with the freezing industry, MAJORITY OF WORKERS SATISFIED “A great majority of the workers

were perfectly satisfied. Farmers by manning the works as they have done with such signal success in Hawke’s Bay are serving a notice to the country that no further increase in the cost of production can be tolerated. In fact, with the steadily dropping values of primary products, _ the cost must be reduced if production is to be maintained. “Whilst the union leaders are demanding a forty-four hour week, farmers are working nearer eighty-four hours per week, and their land is being steadily confiscated by the increasing cost of even? article they purchase. The increasing cost is largely due to artificial restrictions such as Arbitration Court awards and Customs duty. WINTER PROSPECTS BAD “Labour and industry, other than farming, is protected on all sides, and the farmer alone must face the competition of the world. Land has reached its limit; and more than the limit of the burden it can carry. Unless the present ccwts are lowered there will be five unemployed next winter for every one there was last, as all development work on the farms and stations has stopped.