FARM LABOR PROBLEM.

Taranaki Daily News, 10 March 1917, Page 2

FARM LABOR PROBLEM.

ACTION AT GERALDINE SCHEMES PROPOUNDED . .QUESTION OP SOWING WHEAT. By Telegraph. —Press Association. Timaru, March 8, A meeting of about sixty farmers at Gerakline- adopted a programme' of duties for the supervising committee fur soldiers' farms:—Out-of-pocket expenses only to be allowed; farm stock, implements, etc., to be carefully valued, with attention to the state of the land, buildings and fences; farms may be pooled and worked on the co-operative system; the committee may refuse to take over farms that are in a bad financial position; the Government to give assistance in labor, perhaps by allotted, balloted men classed for home service; farms to bo handed back as valuable as when taken over. If possible, provision is to be made for the wives and families of the men sent away. It was stated by Mr. Burbury that Mr. Frostick had advised on and expressed his approval of the programme. Other proposals, concerning the constitution of the committee and the nomination of a number of men from whom tho Efficiency Board could make a selection, were put aside on several grounds, one being that the board would not know the men, and the meeting, after the nomination of sixteen men, elected five of themselves. Replying to the question of conserving labor, Mr. Burbury said he was not authorised to say what the Government had in vi£W, but lie believed labor would be found for those willing to put in wheat, and if \he farmers agreed to put in wheat, probably the Efficiency Board would recommend that a man. be left to the end of May. It was said that the end of June would be better, as the season was so dry. Twenty-six of those present signified that they would put in wheat if labor was assured. A meeting of farmers at Clandeboye, a dairying and cropping section of the Geraldine county, resolved that it was impossible to maintain production if more men were taken from the farmers. . A delegate to a meeting at Temuka was asked to recommend that a list be compiled, of owners willing to give or let land for cropping, and that applications be called from men willing, singly or in,, partnership or in syndicates, to crop such land, the Government to be asked to supply the seed (to be returned), a list of implements available for loan or hire for such use to be compiled. Other resolutions demanded that farm workers bo exempted till the non-essen-tial callings were exhausted, and that a special session of Parliament be called to place the affairs of the country in the hands of business men. It waa stated that several landowners who had been asked to lease land for crops had said they were going to put it in grass.