THE LABOUR QUESTION.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 2358, 20 August 1887, Page 3

THE LABOUR QUESTION .

TO THK KDITOR. Silt, —“Fanning does not pay because of the high rate of wages,” is a very convenient cry for all indolent farmers, who find at the end of the year that their crops have not paid them—chiefly because of their own carelessness and mismanagement. If farmers would give their attention to things of real importance—such as seeing they got proper men to represent them in Parliament, men pledged to do their best to put a stop to the borrowing and absurd expenditure, that lias been the ruin of this colony, and to give Mr Vaile’s scheme of railway management a fair trial, that they might get their produce sent to market cheaply—it would be more to their credit, instead of wasting their time grumbling at the high wages, when everybody that knows anything about tho matter must be aware that the days of high wages have long since departed from the Waikato. I quite agree with “ Whatawhata Farmer,” that there should bo a community of interest between the farmer and Ins men, lint that such is not tho case is mil altogether the labourers’ fault, because the fanners, after getting all the work they can out of a man during the busy season, quietly turn him adrift in the winter, to shift for himself. The fact is, times are had for the farmers, and instead of trying to do the best they can under tho circumstances, they cooly try to shift their burdens on to the shoulders of the working men. If wages are reduced any lower, it will simply drive all the good men out of tho country, which would be a very undesirable state of affairs.—Yours, &c., Ladourer. To Awainutu, August 17th.