WORKING A FARM.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 October 1920, Page 6

WORKING A FARM.

LONG HOURS; LOW WAGES. At the butter inquiry, Mr. W D. Powdrell, M.P. (a member of the committee), in accordance with the wish of the Committee, submitted lengthy data, with the object of showing the working results of a typical dairy farm. He produced balance-sheets of a farm in which he was interested, extending over fifteen years—from 1904—and submitted an analysis of the figures. He purchased the farm 860 acres in 1904 and cut it up into smaller areas and it was the results on one of these areas that he quoted. These results, he said, substantially .supported the conclusions given in evidence by Mr. Singleton, Assistant Dairy Commissioner. Mr. Powdrell sought to show that each successive owner of the farm jiad only been able to make a living by reason of the long hours he, his wife, and his children worked. The farm, meanwhile, with each increase," rose from £3O 10s per acre in 1904 to £IOO in 1020. Calculating the hours worked by each member of the family, lie showed that the rate per hour was very small. If a shilling an hour were allowed for labor there would have been a loss every year. He had compiled tables to show that if five milkers on the farm were paid 2s an hour for the hours worked, extending over three hundred days, there would have been an average loss on the farm per year of £403. If one-third overtime rates were allowed the loss would be £BO3 13s 4d per annum. Yet these rates were not as large as waterside workers received. He was not ineluding rent and interest, merely wages, and his object in doing so was to show that the loss would not be due to the high price of land, a.s some had stated. Yet of the fifteen persons he had helped to put successively on the farm, there was not one who was not independent to-day. This- was due to their saving habits, their capacity for hard work, and the fact that they had no opportunities for spending. Their children, who were termed "white slaves," would be independent, as the result of their work and thrift. If waterside workers or other workers in the towns had worked the same hours, and spent as little, they, also, would be in the same position.

(Replying to Mr. Kellctt, witness contended that the right should not be assumed by the community to interfere with the profits of dairy farmers. The only way the cost of butter could be reduced to the consumer would be by rebates . out of the consolidated revenue. But the rich man—i.e., the retired rich, especially the retired farmer—hotels, boardinghouses should not receive' iSie benefit of cheaper butter at the expense of the farmer. Mr. Powdrell handed his data to the Committee with the object of having it printed with the eviftMfr.