With the previous speakers, I welcome this Bill as one which maintains equality in treatment between agricultural and industrial workers. I must query whether this Bill has sufficient incentives to ensure that our primary objective, which is increased production in agriculture, is aided and maintained. I do not see any difficulty in the holiday scheme as proposed for agricultural workers except in regard to those engaged in the dairying section.
I consider that the dairying section is the main one in the agricultural sector: it is on this that the whole prosperity of the agricultural community and of the country as a whole depends.
As one closely connected with the dairying sector I am concerned with the gradual drop in incentive offered in recent years. It is becoming increasingly difficult to encourage young men to take up a career in farming. It is still regarded by many as a second best. The present legislation may aggravate further the difficulties of some of the farmers engaged in the dairying sector. They may find that the holiday periods will prove very difficult for them to operate, especially during the busy dairying season —spring and summer. In many cases the answer has been, as can be read in the newspapers, dispersal sales. There comes a stage when the farmer feels that life is not worth living if he has to work longer hours when everybody else can enjoy shorter hours.
The answer is not to expect the agricultural worker to work longer hours. It is that the Minister and everybody concerned with dairying or with agriculture in general should give a real push forward to the farm relief services from the co-ops. I cannot understand why these have taken so long to get off the ground. They are the only answer to increased production in agriculture, the only answer to maintaining production in dairying at the present level, the only way of having any hope of reaching the targets we have set to increase steadily our output from dairying. This is the only way that industrial conditions can be given to agricultural workers as provided in this Bill. They can be given if the farmer can say: "You can have your three weeks holidays next month ", and he can call the co-op service and ask them to instal a milking unit for two weeks. That is the only answer.
I am not impressed by the efforts of the co-ops in this direction at present. There is shocking timidity in their approach. They are failing to recognise the necessity for labour groups and the result is that the service is operated on a shoe-string part-time basis by young men who are already working on their own farms but are on call to co-ops when somebody needs their service. I would ask the Minister to do something in this area. Otherwise the Bill will aggravate the situation much more.
I would particularly like to make the point that the present co-op relief system based on additional work for those already employed is no use. It is against our ideas of proper treatment for all that we put incentives in the way of certain classes of workers— these are young farmers mainly working on their own farms—to encourage them to work round the clock in summer to provide this relief service. Like all the other activities of the co-op, the service should be based on a permanent labour force employed by the co-op. I am also suggesting that there should be an element of subsidisation in the early years to encourage this. The amount demanded at present, in the region of £10 per day for milking done for an average size herd, seems large to the farmer paying it. I suggest that half that figure, the rest being subsidised by the co-op, would be more likely to get the scheme going properly.
I should like to stress here that I am not asking for a subsidy on this, either by the Minister or the co-ops. The fact is that the co-ops need more milk and if they get it their processing costs per gallon will go down. It should be recognised that this service is the key to providing the additional output which the co-ops need. Consequently, there is a legitimate claim that part of the savings in production costs per gallon would result from this and should be used to encourage it. I should like to see the Minister and others concerned putting every effort into this. The Bill will only damage the already bad and inadequate labour structure in agriculture if it is not coupled with this incentive.
This is tied up with the necessity for increased employment. We see vast sums being spent, indeed we endorse wholeheartedly the spending of these sums, on increased industrial employment—in other words, it costs today about £5,000 per worker employed—yet we seem as a nation to be disinterested in a reduction of anything from 5,000 to 7,000 in the work force in agriculture each year. There is a failure to provide incentives to bring in young men. I know the Minister is aware of this but I should like his colleagues in Industry and Commerce to be aware of the potential there is for increased employment and rewarding employment in agriculture.
We should emphasise this, because in certain situations where we have this flight from the land—not a flight of actual people but a flight in coffins —the workers concerned are not being replaced. This is due to the fact that we totally fail in our efforts to sell agricultural employment to the younger generation. My contention is that this Bill is negative unless we can move forward. The basic principle is that modern social conditions, approach and so on, make it undesirable for two people to work together, one in the subsidiary role, as the farmer and his employee. That is largely on the way out and the vacuum must be filled by groups coming from the co-op centres.
That is why I urge that this balance be pushed and encouraged in every way. Modern workers like to work together in groups. It gives the status that Senator O'Brien referred to. It gives a status to those working on the land which unfortunately we cannot give in the case of one farmer and one man working with him. The work can be done equally well by the task force coming in. I do not know if the central co-op is more vulnerable to strike action, and so on, that the smaller group. That is something to be balanced because a situation like this is open to irresponsible strike action. Such should be guaraded against very much.
I would like to see the seasonal pattern in agriculture, which is adverted to here, encouraged by the Government as something that is almost as valuable as whole-time yearly employment. With greater emphasis and greater numbers going into second and third level education, we have a very large student body who are eager, anxious and would benefit from opportunities to work during the summer period. Any of our industries which offers a reasonable chance for making a contribution should be encouraged. Relief work would provide seasonal employment in the summer period. We do not say these jobs should be filled necessarily by students but if they are filled by others, that means there are still jobs left for students.
There is a great deal to be done to try to provide agriculture with the labour services it needs and to tap the potential in agriculture for employment, whether on a seasonal or a permanent basis. Unless that is done rapidly, there will not be need for legislating conditions for agricultural workers because the only agricultural workers left will be the farmers' slaves who have no labour court or no trade union to appeal to, and who, when cows have to be milked, cannot strike. They have to do the job whether they are dying on their feet from 'flu or they are exhausted and dreaming of a holiday or even a half day off. That is not a foundation for agriculture, but that will be the only foundation left if we cannot tap and organise the necessary relief labour services which are the key to increased production in agriculture.
