The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1917. A SHORTAGE OF SHEARERS.

Taihape Daily Times, 7 December 1917, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1917. A SHORTAGE OF SHEARERS.

(With which is incorporated The Taihape Poet and Wairnarlno News).

An incident lias occurred during the last few days that should make New Zealauders think. This particular case directly concerns men on the land, but it also indirectly affects everyone. Without production there can be no money, and it is of little advantage to produce if there are no men to harvest that which is produced. Our labours are lost if wheat is to rot where it grew, if wool is not taken from the sheep's back, or if there are no men to turn our sheep and cattle into meat. It seems that this country is short of shearers, and Australia was appealed to for men by the Government. Instead of Australian shearers, coming along they held a meeting. This meeting holding propensity is growing increasingly dangerous [upon us; practiced similarly by Russians it has brought the.downfall of one of the greatest empires on earth, and we need have no doubts about what will happen elsewhere if we do not check ourselves from wasting time in endless meeting holding when calamity threatens. The Australian shearers did not do as they have done for the last forty years, take up their shears and cross over to New Zealand, they just held a meeting and decided to tell the New Zealand Government that New Zealauders could do their own shearing so long as the Dominion was under conscription. In Germany these patriotic gentlemen would be in durance, and many of them shot, aha those not so mercifully treated would be sent to work in the front trenches in one of the hottest places made by British artillery, and who will say those loyal, patriotic Australians have not earned similar attentions. When Avill labour generally learn that such men arc holding their sacred cause from the position it should fill in the economic existence of any and every land? The lesson New Zealand should learn is that its primary producers ought not to be left to the mercy of -a coterie of nomadic disloyal knights of the shears and butchers' knife, who, by our neglect to apprise them at their real value to the Empire, we leave them dictators of the situation when produce has to be harvested. The British Empire is equally beset with enemies from within as wejl as without, and it is of little advantage to scotch one without most effectually dealing with the other. Why do we in this country depend upon woolharvesters from Australia? Is it because we have not the common sense and foresight to sec, realise and provide for our own necessities? We produce that which is not excelled in any other part of the world and then leave harvesting and marketing to chance; if there are shearers, well and good, if there are not there is nothing but a continuous howl, as though it were some other person '& duty to get workmen to come along and be placed at our beck and call. Our forefathers did not leave matters to fortune in this way, they provided for ample skilled mctf, ■'in ,eVery ijn dustry; they had apprenticeship laws, which we sneer at. Neglect to make provision for harvesters of all kinds must sooner or later mean loss of the harvest, just as Britain by failure to provide for defence against an enemy, is within an ace of causing the downfall of the Empire. Our producers wish to enjoy full freedom from shortage

of labour, but they do little or nothing to attain it. It is not the war that is altogether, or even largely responsible for the shortage of shearers, it is this country's stupidity in not producing shearers as well as wool. For several decades there has been the perennial cry for shearers, and many sheds have had to depend upon the nomads from Australia. Now the. Australian supply has failed, and its leaders have told the New Zealand Government to do its own shearing or repeal its conscription laws; our farmers will have to pull through as best they can. We wonder whether the Government, the Farmers' Union or producers generally will take any action to avert a similar trouble next year? From experience of previous years, they will not, but should not this Australian impudence impress them with the fact that if New Zealand continues to depend upon wool and meat for its wealth, it is supreme folly to trust to chance for shearers and butchers. The fact is that the majority of men ou the land arc only half-train-ed for their business and when shearers fail they cannot help themselves. iSteps should at once bo taken to establish -sheep-shearing and wool-class-ing schools. If farmers will not provide practice for 'beginners ton !SK) board, thou in the best interests of themselves they should be compelled to contribute the money for the evolution of shearers by class methods. The State has, unfortunately, removed the last vestige of the old apprenticeship laws, and instead of boys entering an occupation and emerging again in a few years a qualified operator, as in the past, they sample occupation after occupation, and in the end are proficient at nothing. Men that should have been experts in sheep and in every operation in sheep-farming right up to the classing of wool, end up by being clerks at fifty shillings a week, working in the putrid atmosphere of some crowed building in a city. The consequences arc with us now; there is a huge number of hang ers-on to the various military camps looking for easy billets, even to the creation of a national scandal while the wool on thousands of sheep's baeks is deteriorating and the national income is lessened because there are no shearers. The old days, when men took a delight in excelling in shearing, and when sheep-farmers put their hands in their pockets to provide encouragement by way of shearing competitions, are no more. Even in such a great wool-producing district as Taihape is, shearing competitions are not heard of. Men may drop out of competing but that is the fault of the sheep-farmer for not keeping shearing enthusiasm up to that degree the importance of the work to the country fully warrants.