Shearing Changes

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 881, 27 January 1930, Page 8

Shearing Changes

OLD ARTISTS. VANISHING

FEIRS is such spasmodic work that its brief span passes unnoticed by the ordinary person. But shearers deserve a meed of the recognition given during the strenuous period of the wool season to sheep-breeders, wool-brokers and buyers, shippers and purchasing firms. Yet shearing, in these days, is becoming such a matter-of-fact occupation that it is losing its atmosphere to a great degree.

Competition, hard business and its extensive organisation, the necessity for limits of business pressure—these phases of the trade which has dominated the short lives of Australia and New Zealand have had their reflection in the basic work of shearing in the destruction of much of the glamour once associated with the occupation. It is unfortunate to think, if one appreciates colour in life, that the shearers of 1930 have not exactly the spirit and the independence of the hardened veterans who boasted of their shearing careers in the Darling Downs, in Warrego or Wimmera, along the Lachlan, and finally on the lesser stations of New Zealand. Just care-freq rovers who were more interested in the rapid disposal of their ample pay-checks than in the results of the season’s business in wool. Shearers then were large contributors to the spirit—“rollicking” and “independent” are the only words to describe it—which was attached to the whole trade. This independence, when -the finding of markets was not a question of up-to-the-minute organisation, was shared by producers, buyers and the sailing vessel captains who guided wool-laden ships in races from the Waitemata. Port Jackson or Port Phillip to the shores of Victorian England. STILL FASCINATING Not that shearing has lost its fascination. Of all the organised occupations of modern times, it has presserved best the distinctive conduct developed through the years by virile and energetic followers. Even while shearing is carried out on many big stations today with the aid of machinery, another important factor in the destruction of the ability of the true class of shearing enthusiasts, and with a close supervision of the number of bewildered sheep put through the sheds, the shearers maintain their codes. There are challenges to the recognised leading shearer—each shed has a man who is outstanding in the swiftness and the efficiency of his

work—and great excitement if the leader is deposed. The rouseabouts, that peculiar section of workmen drawn from unexpected classes of the community, are subjected to the traditional demands, embellished with shearing language, for faster work. It is their task to clear the fleece away and the task of rouseabouts in a highly efficient gang of shearers is no light one. In the ranks of the rouseabouts, one as often as not finds college students and city clerks on vacation. The benefits of a healthy life and of enforced activity cannot be denied. WORLD’S SIFTINGS Odds and ends of the community s of the world have been sifted occasionally to the shearing sheds of Australia and New Zealand. An Oxford man and a negro from Harlem were once the pride of a shearing gang near Toowoomba, Queensland. Shearers in these times seem to be a younger class. Maoris have shown themselves to be shearers of considerable efficiency, and some stations, especially those of the East Coast, make it a policy to secure Maori gangs for a wool season. Added to his ability, the Maori is a humorist, and he certainly contrives to improve the good-fellowship of the shearing shed. Before the war, a large sheep station within sight of the Manawatu Gorge had a giant East Coast Maori, Tu, as its “ringer”—leading shearer. Tu had a reputation for silence. His quietness did not damage his popularity, even in the shearing shed, where reserve is not expected. Tu survived many challenges as gang leader. At the end of each season he would return quietly to the East Coast, and, with unfailing regularity, would reappear in time for the next season’s operations. Tu was not heard of after 1914, so he may have been killed in the war. While the steadily declining wool prices of this season are worrying producers, the position does not greatly concern the shearer, the artist. He attacks the fleece of the next sheep with perhaps a scathing comment on the sluggishness of rouseabouts. D.C.S.T.