FARMING.
The complaint of farmers is not only against the expense of labour, but also against the profits made by the " middle- man." They reckon from the price the consumer has to pay that they only get about 10 per cent, for their stock. Cheap English beef, which comes to the town dinner-table at a shilling a pound, brings to the farmer little more than a penny a pound. During the War, of course, the farmers made enor- mous and unfair profits ; but since the War many farmers have scarcely been able to exist. The exasperating side to everything is this : before the War the English farmer got good prices for his stock, while the town consumer at the same time paid less for his meat than he does today. But the " middle-man " has now butted in and is earning a great deal more money than is his fair share. It sometimes hits the farm- labourer very hard, for the farmer cannot always afford to pay him the higher national wage which is exacted and is his due. So squeezed between a pair of nut-crackers he only adds to the number of unemployed.
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