WASTED LIVES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 August 1938, Page 5

WASTED LIVES

NEED OF CHECKING DRIFT FROM LAND. OPPOSITION MEMBER’S VIEWS. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. The effect of public works on farm labour and the disposition of public works projects about the country were discussed by Mr J. A. Roy (Opposition, Clutha) when speaking in the Financial Debate in the House of Representatives yesterday. Mr Roy said that, except in rare cases, no farmer would allow his sons to go on public works if he could afford to keep them on the farm. The Rev C. L. Carr (Government, Timaru): “It is not a question of allowing them. These are young men of discretion, and they please themselves.” “Most farmers hope that when they die their sons will take over the farms,” Mr Roy continued, “and every farmer whose son goes on public works knows that he is going into a blind alley job that leads him nowhere. There may be good wages on public works at the present time —no doubt they are—but in the majority of cases the men' do not learn any sort of a trade and this competition is taking them away from the farms. If the Minister of Lands, the Hon F. Langstone, had a good policy he would be counteracting the drift from the land, because it is a great pity to see young men wasting their lives learning how to use a pick and shovel.”

Mr Roy said that Government members had taken great credit for the fact that the dairy-farmers were to be paid a bonus over and above the guaranteed price, but, after all, it was the farmers’ own money.