A FARM LABOUR CORPS.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 June 1940, Page 4

A FARM LABOUR CORPS.

SUGGESTIONS by the “Otago Daily Times” that the formation of a farm labour corps may deserve attention as a means of counteracting the shortage of rural labour and increasing production and that the organisation of the Public Works Department might be drawn upon for that purpose, obviously are entitled to practical consideration. Lack of living accommodation accentuates seriously, in many instances, the difficulty of securing labour for farms. In this respect and others there does not seem to be any doubt that the organisation and equipment of the Public Works Department might be turned most advantageously to account in furtherance of primary production. The Department, as the southern newspaper observes, is accustomed to establish its bases on major construction works as more or less mobile and self-contained villages. It has modern equipment of every sort, including tractors in large supply. If it were possible to organise under departmental control corps of workers capable of doing essential farm work under expert supervision, whole districts could be worked systematically on a routine which would embrace each seasonal phase of farm operations. The accommodation difficulty in such a comprehensive organisation would largely adjust itself. The problem of payment should also admit of adjustment under an arrangement perfected as between the farmers and the Government. While there are some more or less obvious difficulties to be overcome, the scheme appears also to offer advantages which should more than amply warrant its possibilities being examined in detail. The organisation of effective working units ought to be quite feasible and there is evidently a great deal to be said for making productive use of plant and housing and other equipment instead of allowing it to become for the time being a dead and perhaps deteriorating asset.

The proposal plainly is one which should be taken up by the Minister of Public Works and his Department with representatives of farming industry. Mr Semple has shown himself alive to the need of developing a full-powered war effort and the project of using the organisation and equipment of his Department in building up'war time production is one that on its merits may bo expected to appeal to him strongly.