FIVE HUNDRED YOUNG WOMEN

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 62, 6 April 1943, Page 4

FIVE HUNDRED YOUNG WOMEN

WHEN the District Manpower Officer at a sitting of the Industrial Manpower committee happens to mention in the course of a statement to the chairman, that a further demand for some 500 young women workers has been received, and that concurrant with this demand a crisp order is also received to the effect that they MUST BE FOUND .the public may be reasonably excused for politely asking of the authorities —just when is it going to end. While appreciating the invidious position of the officer concerned we feel that at a time when even the military authorities have recognised the drastic position of primary industries! vtorday and are releasing men from the Armed {Forces in order to try and relieve it, that it is a suicidal step to comb out from the weakened structure of commercial life, these girls who after a year or two's training are now satisfactorily replacing the men they have relieved. Just how far does the Government of this country intend to go ? There appears to be no line of retreat left for ness at the present time, but that the authorities will not see fit to seize upon and pick the eyes therefrom, glibly telling the country at large, in the process, to carry on. Were it not for the wholesale waste Of time and substance which every soldier on leave admits is the greatest drawback to camp life, the country might be expected to bear the increasing burden laid upon it more patiently, but when our young girls are expected to leave home and staff munition factories hundreds of miles away when all around is evidence of an apparent excess military manpower, the demand is as distasteful as it is unfair. Also may we draw attention to the picture of a Manpower Committee (five strong) which makes a special 50 mile trip to sit in Whakatane on the pros and cons of one single girl's appeal* ' against a move to Wellington. The sitting lasted half an hour.