SHOULDERS TO WHEEL

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 165, 8 October 1941, Page 6

SHOULDERS TO WHEEL

AMERICAN INDUSTRY AND

HITLERISM

NEED R)!l A SOUNDER PLAN

Can the average American visua-

lise 10,000 persons' oat of work? Possibly so, for a metropolitan baseball park or bathing beach these days may hold several times this number enjoying themselves. But can he visualise 10,000 persons at Avork? probably not, for the factory operations to employ this number are too extended for the eye to take it at a sweep. More important to-day, it is doubtful if many comprehend the volume ol' goods that can be turned out for defence by such a number of people—or that must be turned out by man 3' tens of hundreds of thousands, even millions, in order to win the battle of production (states the Christian Science Monitor in its editorial of August 7). Re-employment Problem At the height of that battle there is now the uncomfortable situation in which not 10.000 but 175,000 workers are suddenly faced with possible idleness through the impounding of silk supplies in warehouses for defence needs. More thousands of gasolene station attendants in eastern States arc laid ofl' by the ending of night shifts between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. Where to re-em-ploy these myriads of idle hands js a major problem. In the ease of silk the OPM and OPACS are endeavouring immediately to arrange a resumption or substitution of work on an approximately .normal scale. Unpleasant as it may sound, these are only two of numerous dislocations forced upon the. American people and likely to be forced upon thein by the necessity of arming against Hitlerism and its satellite schools of aggression. As a kind of rude compensation the armament drive sets up an intensive demand for workers in many mechanical lines, so thai those who are forced out of jobs at present have a better than ordinary prospect of finding new employment along with some thousands of unemployed being gradually reabsorbed. The services of the Government employment offices should be used to the utmost in this process, and every agency for rc-training to provide the needed skills should rcceive support. Using Every Man-Hour. Yet there is evidently something to be desired in the speed of organising defence production. One would thinlc that by this time there would be facilities organised by employing almost anj r available labour force in the service of supply. Certainly the crj' from the training camps and manoeuvre grounds has been one for equipment—actual guns, planes and tanks with which to practice. Each day, gratifyingly, brings accounts of new factories made ready for production and of long lists of Army and Navy contracts let. Yet almost c\cjy day, too. brings disturbing reports of administrative tangles in Washington, of delay and confusion in getting decisions, and of red tape where there should be prompt action. Even in the automobile industry, where defence orders have been placed in biggest volume, R. J. Thomas, president of the United Automobile Workers, voices concern lest the scaling down of motor car production to save metal may turn 200,000 men out of work before employment is organised for them in the munitions making which they would be glad to forward. Certainly this situation calls for every possible ounce of pressure on defence production and for more unified direction of it to the end that every available manhour of skilled or partly skilled labour shall be .turned to account in the contest for freedom.