FARMERS INDIGNANT

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 201, 14 November 1927, Page 12

FARMERS INDIGNANT

CHALLENGE TO EMPLOYERS’ SECRETARY “NOT AN IGNORANT RABBLE” Press Association. PATH AT UA, To-day. The directors of the PahiatLia Farmers’ Association have forwarded a telegram to the Prime Minister as follows: “Trade union secretaries and the Employers’ Federation and employees do not speak for the farmers. We challenge the statement made by Mr. T. O. Bishop, secretary of the Employers’ Federation, to the effect that farmers are an ignorant rabble, who cannot speak for themselves. We are looking to you for definite leadership, and respectfully request you to push the Arbitration Amendment Bill through the House this session. The farmers’ present condition is rotten.” It is reported that suppliers to the Hopelands Dairy Company dispatched a telegram to Mr. Coates urging Cabinet to proceed with the Arbitration Amendment Bill. At the Pahiatua Farmers’ Saleyards Association directors’ meeting, the chairman, Mr. Dan O’Brien said the farmers should be on the lookout, for they would be snowed under by those whose interests were directed to keeping the primary producer tied down to his farm. He said that evidence being given before the committee which was to report to Parliament on the Bill was being heavily weighted against the farming community by trades union secretaries, the Employers’ Federation secretaries and brothers who, it was alleged, had axes to grind. Strong exception was taken by tht meeting to the fact that Mr. Bishop, secretary of the Wellington Employers’ Association, had been permitted to give evidence no fewer than three times. “If this is the sort of thing being permitted,” said Mr. O’Brien, “it is high time we farmers made our weight felt. If we do not there is no doubt but that the Bill will be so badly mutilated that it would be useless.”