A VIGOROUS PROTEST

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 7, Issue 26, 23 November 1943, Page 5

A VIGOROUS PROTEST

BY GISBORNE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AGAPXST CALLING-CP OF GIRLS ''The Gisbornc Chamber of Commerce strongly urges upon Cabinet :in immediate review of the call ingup of womanpowcr throughout the country," stated the. text of a telegram sent by the chamber to the Prime Minister, following a protest Council. at a recent meeting. ''The present indiscriminate ealling-up of girls throughout Xcw Zealand in important, and skilled occupations, even if those occupations are not classed as csential industries, especially at tin's time of tlie year, .so far as the retail trades are concerned, and dispatching them to Wellington to work in cigarette factories is wasteful and uneconomic when there are hundreds of girls resident in Wellgton in the armed forces who eou; without loss to tne efficiency of these services be transferred to the vacancies in essential industric-s. The Cham ber protests against the refusal of Appeal Boards to hear employers' evidence and urges that local magistrates, should act as appeal authorities. Finally, as stated by the appeal authority here., the subsidising of wages in a cig'arettfe. factory—a deiinitely luxury trade in war timeout of the War Expenses Account, which is financed by moneys loaned to the Government to help win the war, is a gross abuse to confidence and must act deleteriously against future loan proposals."