LABOUR ON THE LAND

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 59, 29 May 1942, Page 4

LABOUR ON THE LAND

FROM the Whakatane district v a,lone it is estimated that some six hundred of the fittest and best workers have left the farms for military service. This figure excludes those men who have merely undertaken territorial training. The same position in varying degrees obtains throughout New Zealand and the complaints are in no sense exaggerated . Yet nobody can say what the shortage amounts to, or how it may be overcome, because it is still nobody s business even to draw up plans for food production, the most vital activity of war after the provision and equipment of men. This should be the work of the Ministry of Man-power, but it has not been done because the Ministry has not yet roused itself even to the extent of preparing the long-promised, register of man-power. The initiative in this matter is obviously a Government responsibility. But if the Government of New Zealand shuts its eyes to the facts, and still declines to list food production as an essential industry, there is still much that could be done to stop the rot in farming that is threatened by the shortage of labour. The Farmers' Unions should create their own organisation to ascertain their requirements and place them unmistakably before the placement officers. They should not cease to press for planned pro duction and the provision of labour to carry it out, not in a hand-to-mouth manner, but on the lines of English planning, which are readily ascertainable.