A NEW ZEALANDER ABROAD

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 620, 23 March 1929, Page 29

A NEW ZEALANDER ABROAD

CONDITIONS IN RURAL ENGLAND WAGES AND RENTS IN NORFOLK An Invercargill resident on a visit to England writes a very Interesting story of the rural life in Norfolk, particularly in those districts where the growing of sugar-beet and the manufacture of sugar are important industries. The letter says; "We paid a visit to a beet sugar factory just a few miles out of town and spent the afternoon going over it. The beet sugar industry is a Dutch one, and all the heads of the firms here are Dutch though it is English money invested in it. “As this country is so similar to Holland and the beet-sugar industry is such-a thriving one there, the Government has seized upon it as a method of resuscitating at least one bit of England, and by way of encouragement are subsidising factories to a very large amount. They are also doing every thing possible in a desperate attempt to encourage the farmers to grow beet, even transferring the beet from the fields to the factory for nothing. The factory

people say they are doing well and could stand on their feet without the subsidy, but the farmers are growing lesS and less beet. Growers receive 42s a ton for beet yielding 15 per cent, sugar with a good bonus for higher sugar-yielding samples. The beet is grown in drills and is all cultivated and thinned by hand and the labour involved must be terrific. 1 have not seen anything in the way of a modern implement in the whole district. Conservative Farmers “Two factors operate against the introduction of modern machinery:—(l) The Norfolk farmer is quite the most conservative person you could hope to meet in the world, and (2) labour is lid an hour cheaper in Norfolk than anywhere else in the British Isles. “A farm labourer with wife and family gets 30s a week and there is a big fuss on at present because the farmers wish to reduce this to 25s during the winter, when there is so little to do on the farms. “You will wonder how the farm labourers live until 1 tell you a bit more, as the cost of food, milk, etc., as I know only too well, is every bit as high here as in London. The secret is the rent they pay. The farm labourers live in villages and walk to and from their work every day. The usual rental of the cottages with their patches of land is Is lOd a week. Y'ou can’t really growl at the duck pond and the village pump as the source of the water supply under such circumstances, can you? “I know a rather better-class worker —a golf coach who gets 27s a week plus what he makes by private coaching at 2s an hour, and who pays 5s a week for a six-roomed brick house on a quarter-acre section. The Food Question The diet of the farm labourer’s children is interesting. They live on potatoes and margarine with meat as a special treat for one meal a week. I think the Italians with their muchdespised spaghetti and wine are much better off. Harvesting Harvesting here has been an interesting sight. They have reapers in most places, though I have seen them cutting with the sickle now and again. What 1 have never seen is a reaper and binder. The men come along and gather up a fair armful which they tie with a straw band. I never saw such poor stooks; they are always flopping down somewhere or other because the straw bindings more often than not give way, the crop loosens out and there is no firmness or stability in it.” The letter concludes with a further reference to the tragedy that would be associated with the closing down of the elaborate beet-sugar factories; an event that is more than a possibility unless something is done soon to urge farmers to adopt more scientific cultivation methods and up-to-date farm machinery. FRIESIAN DEMONSTRATION Mr. J. P. Kalaugher, official demonstrator for the New Zealand Friesian Association, gave a demonstration at the Morrinsville A. and P. Show this week. The attendance was very large, and included a number of the t senior boys from the secondary de-1 partment of the Morrinsville District High School. The demonstrator dealt specially with- the method adopted by official judges in determining the quality of dairy cattle in the show-ring. j