DEMOBILISATION

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 54, 1 September 1944, Page 4

DEMOBILISATION

MUST BE GRADUAL

ABSORPTION INTO INDUSTRY Clqse contact ai\d collaboration between the Service authorities and employment avenues on the question of demobilisation after the war was urged in the Legislative Council yesterday afternoon by the Hon. T. O. Bishop (Wellington), ]V{en and women, he said, had to be re-established in every part of the economy of the Dominion, and if demobilisation were to be brought about suddenly, with personnel released in a flood, a state of chaos would probably be created. Demobilisation by stages was probably highly^ desirable, said Mr. Bishop, so ttiat as men and women, were released they would be absorbed into industry. There would then ■be no wait and no term of unemployment to give them cause to feel they were not wanted and were not being repaid for the service they had given. It would probably be difficult to hold them in the forces when the war ended, however. The grea.t majority would desire to be rid of all service restraint at the earliest moment; they would wish to find jobs for themselves, and he thought that they should be encouraged, as far as was practicable*, to carry that laudable desire into effect. On the other hand, there would ba many who would have to be assisted, perhaps trained, and led into a class of employment they had never had before. Mr. Bishop said he thought it essential that some force or standing army be retained in Ne^Y Zealand for a considerable time to come. The Pominipn was caugnt once defenceless, and by the grace of God emerged from that danger—let the country have some force, sufficient, at any rate, to hold-put against a possible invader until aid could come from another country. .