MILITARY SERVICE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 June 1940, Page 4

MILITARY SERVICE

NEED OF RETAINING KEY MEN IN FARMING AND OTHER INDUSTRIES. STATEMENT BY SIR WILLIAM PERRY. A most decided opinion that immediate action should be taken to prevent an undue drain of trained and experienced men from farmin"' and

other essential industries was

expressed by Sir William

Berry, in a statement today. “As a farmer and employer of a number of men,” Sir William said, “I realise the serious position this country is moving into with regard to the farm labour problem. As a member of the No. 1 Military Service Board in the last war, I have had considerable experience of this question. The men necessary for carrying on the production of the country are enlisting because they resent the odium of being classed as conscripts. Many of them fill in their papers as labourers. If steps are not taken immediately to alter this state of affairs, there will be a considerable slackening in production. There are very few men off public works who would be worth while employing on an up to date farm, more especially as it is the key men, in many instances, who are enlisting. I suggest that immediate action be taken to ensure that the necessary men in farming and other industries should not be allowed to go out of the country.”

As an example of the manner in which the agricultural labour problem is being dealt with in the United Kingdam, an item in the British “Farmer and Stock Breeder” of March 26, 1940, reports a statement by the County War Agricultural Committee of the County of Devon that in dealing with 269 applications for postponements of military service, it had recommended postponement in 236 cases. The other 33 cases were not considered those of bona fide agricultural labourers. Essential men in many branches of industry are being withheld from military service in Britain as a matter of national policy. So far as agriculture is concerned, the Mother Country is not only intent on maintaining production, but is putting an additional two million acres under’ the plough this season. The share of this additional ploughing allotted to the County of Devon is 80,000 acres.