DUTY TO FIGHTING MEN

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 199, 20 May 1944, Page 6

DUTY TO FIGHTING MEN

Home Front Held Wanting STRIKES AND DEMANDS FOR SHORTER HOURS

Regret that "there is in New Zealand not a universal appreciation of what we owe to our lighting men,” was expressed by the president of the Mnkara-Hlltt A alley branch of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union. Mr. R. Sievers, in his address to the annual meeting of the branch in Wellington yesterday.

“It is regrettable that we should still have a succession of strikes and go-slow tactics.” .he said. "In ordinary limes a strike is illegal—in war time it is most damaging to public morale, and. till the whole community adopts this view we shall never have the correct attitude toward our national obligations. -It is to be regretted that under present conditions we find insistent demands from certain sections of the community for shorter working hours, and this at a time when the manpower problem is probably the greatest one facing this Dominion. "The people in the towns should realize. as should the Government, that they can expect little response from an already over-worked farming community, if they actively or passively condone any move to lessen the burden of working hours upon one. section, while asking the farmers of the Dominion to work still harder. "That is not the way to get increased production, and it is not the way to support the morale of a farming community already weakened by measures adopted as an expendiency, and which must, in the long run, operate against the best interests of the community. “Surely it is not too late for us to get together and work together for victory? We cannot expect our lighting men to light with the same energy, if they know that the people at home arc wanting to take things easy.”.