17 JUNE 1949, Page 20

THE LAND AND LABOUR

Sta,—A good deal might be accomplished if some arrangement could be come to between the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the N.F.U. and the N.U.A.W. on the question of overtime. At present the agricultural worker not unnaturally refuses to work overtime because under the P.A.Y.E. system it means that he must accept it below the basic rate. The farmer, on his part, simply cannot afford it, and so, in this time of continued world-scarcity and general shortage of labour, we musk perforce continue to see our crops at harvest-time untended in the late evenings

or Saturday afternoons.—Yours faithfully, BERNARD W. H. PRATT.

Old House Farm, Brooke, Norwich.