THE THRESHING QUESTION.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2639, 29 March 1894, Page 2

THE THRESHING QUESTION.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —As far as the present unfortunate dispute with regard to the threshing question in South Canterbury is concerned, I would be pleased if you would allow me to say just one word on the subject. lam employed by Mr J. F. Douglas, and putting personalities on one side, I am in a position to state that I, in common with the rest of the men who have contracted to thresh at 8s and 10s per thousand bushels, find that in the year of grace 1891 I am not making a fortune. 1 also have been permitted to examine the books that deal with the accounts of Mr Douglas, and I have discovered that if the working man does badly in a bad season, the mill-owner does worse. Still, 1. don’t wish to hold a brief for Mr Douglas, or any other man who employs me for that matter, because it stands to reason that 1 must in the long run work for tho person who pays me best. I, however, have never found, and am perfectly prepared to prove, that there is not one single owner of a threshing plant in tho Geraldine district who can call himself a millionaire this season. “ Wheat is a drug in the market, and oats are hardly saleable.” Thus speaks the mill-owner, and neither the farmer nor the produce merchant can deny this statement. It is all very well to use a hackneyed argument and declare that because the proprietor of a threshing plant can keep himself going for nine months in the year without ostensibly earning a living, that threshing is a paying game,; but I venture to submit, with *ll due humility, that the Union men have chosen the very worst time that they could Hud to even ask that that their grievances bo submitted to arbitration. For my own part, I may say at once that I will be only too willing to help the Union in 1895. In my humble opinion the Union in 1894 has only made itself ridiculous. —1 am, etc., Eoy Webber. Temuka, March 20, 1894.