CLASSIFICATION OF INDUSTRIES

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3070, 4 May 1917, Page 6

CLASSIFICATION OF INDUSTRIES

LIST OF ESSENTIAL ACTIVITIES EFFICIENCY BOARD'S SELECTION The Notional Efficiency Board has had in hand for some time the task of classifying industries according to their importance, the object being to give to the Government and the Military Service Boards some indication as to which industries wore essential. The board actually classified industries and occupations into four classes:—(a) Most essential; (b) Essential; (c) Partially essential; and (d) Non-essential. These lists havo been before Cabinet, and Cam'net has approved of the lists (a) and (b). These lists are as follow :— (a) Most Essential Industries— Agriculture, cattle-raising, coal-mining, dairy factories, dairy farming, doctors and medical "students (but medical studentsiin their first and second' year and possibly in their third year are not considered essential), freezing works; railways, scheelite mining, sheep-raising, shipping, steamship repair work, (b) Essential Industries— Agricultural implement-making, ammunition manufacture, baking, boarding department of hotels, boarding-houses, boiler repairing, bootniakiug, butchering, clothing manufacture, dentists, electrical , power-stations, engine-driving in essential industries, farriers' work and blacksmithing, fellmongering, fruit-growing, fruit preserving, gas manufacture, goldmining, manure manufacture (including the making of .lime for agriculture), meat preserving, nurserymen and gard■ening for commercial purposes, qualified pharmaceutical chemists, saddlery and harness-making, sugar refining, woollen manufacture.

In a note on the list (a) the EmcTency Board maiies the following explanation: "The industries and occupations included under this heading are deemed to be of primary importance, but this classification must not be read as including eacli and every man employed therein. It may bo that many of those now employed can be replaced, but no person should ho removed whose removal would' imperil tho successful maintenance of the industry or occupatidn."

Regarding Class (b), the board is scarcely less emphatic as to the necessity for keojSing. |Tiq industries going without loss of efficiency. The note to the_(b) list runs as follows: "The industries included under this heading are regarded as essential, and second only in importance to those in class (a). In this classification it may be round that a very much larger'percentage of men can bo releasefi for military service than may be possible in Class (a), but no person should bo removed whose removal would imperil the successful maintenance of the industry or occupation."