Is there a solution? If so, the sooner it is put into operation the better for the prospects of the Grow More Food Campaign. Skilled men are hard to find and, when they are found, nearly always they are mature of age, married, and possess a family. The case of the farmer who is badly in need of tractor drivers, or carters, or cowman, is indeed hard if his cottages are thus immobilized and the working of the farm is thrown out.
There is another difficulty that has been brought to my notice very strongly of late. There are a good many young fellows of 18 to 19 who would like to take up work on the land temporarily but who are quite unskilled. They come to a farmer and ask him to put them on, but they are unable to work for nothing (no one wishes them io do so), and if he takes thomson he must pay them the standard rate for their age as obtaining in his county. He knows perfectly well that they are more likely to be a hindrance than a help because, not understanding the work, they keep up a volley of questions to the men with whom they work, and so delay them. They are not likely to be worth the standard wage for some months, and meanwhile they can only help to perform the easiest tasks on the farm.
Money being short, farmers feel that they cannot give these young fellows the chance they would like to if they were not rigidly compelled te pay them a standard wage which is the due of farm workers of their age with some experience, but, which would be sheer waste of money with lads who know nothing but have to be taught everything. I doubt very strongly if farmers have the time now available to teach labour how to work. Most farmers not only have to perform their usual duties of running the farm, but have to take off their coats as well and get down to certain jobs.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.